[2] Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native, and grew up in a family of voracious readers.

As an undergraduate at Reed College, Fitch had decided to become a historian, attracted to its powerful narratives, the scope of events, the colossal personalities, and the potency and breadth of its themes.

But when she won a student exchange to Keele University in England, where her passion for Russian history led her, she awoke in the middle of the night on her twenty-first birthday with the revelation she wanted to write fiction.

[3] Fitch was a faculty member in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, where she taught fiction.

Amber Tamblyn directed a 2016 feature film based on the book.