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Four kids, two grandparents, one attic: an ode to 'Flowers in the Attic' by V. C. Andrews
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Hands down ‘Flowers in the Attic’ is one of my all time favorite summer reads. Debuting in 1979 it was one of the first books that; a) I was probably too young to read. b) Simply could not put it down even if the sun was blazing overhead and my whole body was in danger of not only being sunburned, but incinerated. It also marked a trait that I have continued since my youth – I do judge books by their covers.
The cover of ‘Flowers’ was classic, a creepy old home with a cut out showing a girl’s face looking through a window to the attic. You opened the book up and the girl was joined by her older brother and younger sister and brother who were twins. This book was paperback heaven and I would dare any prolific reader of summer literary fair of ‘79 not to pick it up at wherever the finest books were sold back then.
It was juicy tale about four kids who find themselves imprisoned in the attic of their grandparents’ palatial home. The story begins with their father, who was a doctor who at the beginning of the story dies in a car wreck (don’t ask me how I remember these things because I swear I haven’t read this book since that summer). Their mother realizes that although she is glamorous and such, she really doesn’t have any marketable skills besides being pretty so she packs up the kids and heads home to make nice with her parental units. The catch is that her parents have written her off as a bad investment since she ran off with a doctor (whom I think she may have been related to if I remember correctly – oh, I looked it up, their father was the half brother of their mother’s father). Ergo, she is welcomed home by her mother on one condition; that the four children be put up in the attic away from where her own father is holed up but tied down with a variety of tubes waiting to go to that country club in the sky (he didn’t know that she had children with her half uncle, which their grandmother never fails to tell them is a major sin and they are Satan’s begotten or something like that). Of course if she hadn’t consented there wouldn’t be much of a story so suffice to say she said, “Done and done!”
She is also horse whipped by her mother.
The kids sort of buy into the idea that their grandfather despised their Dad so they have to live in the attic for only a short time until the old man dies. It so ever makes more sense if you are a teen. Alas, that short time grows into years and Cathy, the main character who wants to be a ballerina, and her brother Chris, who wants to follow in his old man’s footsteps and become a doctor, become surrogate parents to the twins. One of which, Cory the boy, ends up dying, and Carrie the girl develops oddly from a lack of vitamin D (no sunshine) – the after affects of which become a theme in the sequels to the books.
The kids (ages 14, 12, and 5 at the start of the story) rarely see their mother who has sort of forgotten they are in the attic, the same way a child who grows into an adult forgets a favorite stuffed animal (come on, you saw ‘Toy Story 2’). Whom they do see on a daily basis is their grandma dearest who appears stern and like one of those characters in Victorian gothic themed novels. She gives them food, but doesn’t give them love until she finally decides to just tries to poison them which results with the two eldest escaping while carrying their young sister. Not that you couldn’t see it coming, but the night they escape they interrupt their mother’s wedding to a parent approved fellow. That is when Cathy confronts her about keeping them in the attic thus embarrassing her in front of all of her guests – a major wedding faux pas.
In between all of this Cathy and Chris start an incestual relationship and they decorate the attic in paper flowers. The grandmother also cuts all of Cathy’s hair off which prompted my cousin, during watching the movie ‘Flowers in the Attic’ to say, in the theater no less, “Grandma why are you making me wear this wig?”
Talk about your shocking reads, of course I shared this book with every other person of my acquaintance who read which is probably the reason why I have so few books from my childhood. Thankfully the sequels came out and I read them until I tired of the whole we’re siblings and married angle. Years later I watched a segment on ‘Sixty Minutes’ and discovered, much to my amazement, that V. C. Andrews had been dead since 1986 but a publisher had purchased the right to use her name thus in all appearances she was writing novels literally from the grave (I guess they don’t call them ghost writers for nothing).
I suppose I am prompted to write this article as a tribute of sorts. Despite whatever has gone on in my life I have always been able to have my troubles carried away with a good novel (of course the definition of good is subjective). I suppose that ‘Flowers in the Attic’ wasn’t something I should have been reading…but boy I’m glad I did.
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