Twelve-year-old Astrid is the daughter of Ingrid Magnussen, a charismatic and narcissistic Los Angeles poet who kills her boyfriend for breaking up with her early on in Janet Fitch’s coming-of-age novel. When Ingrid is sentenced to prison, Astrid is sent to a series of challenging placements in foster homes, many of them with foster mothers whose struggles in their own romantic relationships color their capacity to care—or not care—for her. Over her teenage years, Astrid stays with a born-again recovering alcoholic whose boyfriend takes an interest in Astrid; a bigoted woman who lives near a Black call girl, whom Astrid tries to befriend; a loving but self-destructively needy former actress; and a tough Russian woman. Oleander, an invasive plant that grows plentifully in California, often by highways, becomes a metaphor for dangerous love, maternal and otherwise. Throughout, Fitch’s heady, imagistic prose, influenced by her teacher, the writer Kate Braverman, casts a spell and captures the many moods and neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
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