“No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.” This sentiment of hers repeats itself when she thinks she can get away with murder, literally (his murder). Barry becomes her conflict, the archetype of all men. So, by design, she inflates herself to enormous proportions and inflates conflict the same way. He illuminates Ingrid’s larger problem with power the lack of it and compensation for it. The tension is riveting, and by Astrid’s third foster care fiasco you just want to strangle this ice queen who melts away her kid’s hopes so heedlessly. She seeks normalcy among strangers, while Ingrid’s letters from a prison cell dog her with cold criticisms. Astrid spends years struggling with abandonment and her complicated feelings for her mother. She gets carted off to prison and Astrid ends up in foster care. She rages over his rejection and concocts an elaborate poison that kills him. Alas, Barry seems to be in-it to win-it and upon winning her, loses interest. having achieved some semblance of stability, enjoying success as a poet, and beginning a relationship with Barry who has courted her persistently. Ingrid is a bit delusional and self-absorbed to the point of narcissism-because how else could she totally ignore that she is basically homeless and holed up at a boyfriend’s pad, raising (term used loosely) a small child. She returns, reclaims her toddler, Astrid, and vows that they will from then on be inseparable despite Ingrid’s boyfriends and bad decisions. Over the course of the novel (spoiler alert), Astrid finds that her mother abandoned her at the babysitter’s while taking a year to try to sort out whether investing in a commitment, i.e., motherhood, was doable. All the same, Astrid sees her as beautiful, almost painfully so, and therefore idealizes her to us readers. She adores her mother, yet without a lot of backstory we know her mother is not ideal parenting material.
The story, in first person narrative is told by Astrid, and through her point of view we are able to bore into Ingrid’s character. Ingrid is the self-absorbed mother of Astrid. That’s why I’ve chosen to examine Fitch’s character, Ingrid. I think it is well worth examining how she does this while making it seem so effortless. She’s written a novel rich with sensory detail and prose so beguiling that you’ll end up with love for the hateful characters and hate for the loveable ones. This applies to character, setting, scene, etc., and author Janet Fitch’s novel, White Oleander, is my go-to book for examples in doing this. In creative writing workshops the first thing you learn is to “show instead of tell” your story. Click on the image to access White Oleander on Goodreads.
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