Josie Tyrell was thoroughly, madly in love with Michael Faraday. It was a classic “other side of the tracks” setup: she was the poor, punked-out art model; he was the son of famous parents. Josie thought they’d enjoy their Bohemian lifestyle for years to come—until she got the call.

Life as Josie knows it shatters when Michael’s body is found at a desolate motel. He shot himself in the head, an artist no more. Bone-crushing grief, only somewhat numbed by drugs and booze, is second only to his mother’s vicious hatred of Josie. Yet Meredith and Josie are inexplicably drawn to each other, each reaching for some remnant of their lost Michael; some meaning from his death.

Josie trips along the edge of sanity while constantly dealing with Meredith’s manipulations. Does the woman want to kill her or make her replace Michael? Does Josie even care? Maybe all that’s left is Stoli, Gauloise ciggies, and whatever pills she can buy. Surely, a drug haze is better than reality. If she can just hope hard enough, maybe it’ll have been a nightmare, and maybe Michael won’t really be dead. But as she learns more about the great love of her life, she finds that he wasn’t everything he seemed to be.

Where’s the meaning in Michael’s death? IS there meaning? Maybe Meredith was right, and Josie should have died instead. These are just a few of the questions facing a young, lost woman in the aftermath of tragedy.

Fitch’s hypnotic style pulls readers along the difficult road of Josie’s coming of age. She holds nothing back, not the anguish, not the confusion, and not the hopelessness that plague the broken girl in Josie. The writing is as harsh as the emotion, harsh enough that sensitive readers will shy from the language and prolific drug use. But if readers look past the “wrong” choices Josie makes, they will see a near-dead girl slowly grow and bloom into an astonishing new woman.

This is not a fairy tale, and Josie’s problems aren’t miraculously solved by the end. Instead, the end becomes a beginning, a beginning that will allow Josie to see a new road of unexpectedly brilliant possibilities.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
9/21/2006

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