I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and enchanted spells.
V.C. Andrews on Magic. (The Commonplace Book Project)
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“I was the kind of child who always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants and enchanted spells. I didn’t want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific explorations.” — V.C. Andrews
The 12-year-old protagonist of my book needed a book to read that was newish in 1985, something her mother wouldn’t let her read, and also something that would completely engross her.
And I needed it to be the first in a series, so that her new, very young, step-mother could give her the next book as a gift.
It was a no-brainer.
I gave her Flowers in the Attic.
I was 13 when the last book in the Dollanganger series, Seeds of Yesterday, was released. My step-mother bought and read all four books, one at a time, that summer. She’d read one and when she was done, I’d read it.
My own mother would have had kittens if she knew I was reading books that involved teenage incestuous sex. (I don’t think that she would have understood that the part that would have scandalized her was the part that mattered to me the least.)
So, I suppose using Flowers in the Attic in my book is autobiographical.
I don’t know if I would have been so enraptured by V.C. Andrews books if I’d been an adult when I read them. They remain a guilty pleasure — I’ve re-read the entire series twice as an adult and waited for each of the Lifetime movies with bated breath. But at least some of that (maybe most of it?) is nostalgia.
Sometimes a story just gets all tangled up with growing up and it sticks with you. That’s what V.C. Andrews books were for me.
V.C. Andrews wrote the Dollanganger series, a ghost story called My Sweet Audrina (that I loved when I was thirteen or fourteen, too), and the first couple of books in another series.
After Andrews died of breast cancer when she was 63, her family hired a ghost writer to finish books she’d started. Dozens of books, all in series, have been written entirely by ghostwriter named Andrew Neiderman and published under V.C. Andrews name. The practice continues.
I found this notice in Publisher’s Weekly about an upcoming prequel series.
Gallery Buys New Andrews Titles
Gallery Books’ Jennifer Bergstrom inked a four-book deal, with Writers House, to continue publishing V.C. Andrews–bylined books. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic) died in 1986, but her series has lived on; Flowers in the Attic titles have continually been released for over 30 years. Al Zuckerman at WH inked the world rights agreement, through which Andrew Neiderman (The Devil’s Advocate) will continue to pen the Andrews-branded titles. The first book under the deal is titled The Swan and, per Zuckerman, “explores the story of the first Corrine, the grandmother of the mother who locks her children in an attic” in Flowers in the Attic. It’s planned that The Swan and its sequel will be two of the four titles under this deal. The publication of the original Flowers in the Attic will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year.
As I wrote this, I put on the 2014 Lifetime adaptation of Flowers in the Attic. It’s terrible, in that kind of kitschy, delicious way. The epitome of a guilty pleasure, I think.
There was a 1987 Flowers in the Attic movie that was just plain bad. Really awful. I was surprised to find out that Wes Craven wrote a screenplay for that movie that was rejected because it was too violent. He was scheduled to direct it, but without his script he backed out.
In February, Lifetime announced a new series movies based on second series of Andrew’s books — the last books she worked on before her death.
Today’s Poem:
The Sick Rose By William Blake
O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.
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Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.
