Woman Beyond the Attic

 

I was trying to describe "Flowers in the Attic" to a coworker who had never read it, and I told her it was my gateway drug. V.C. Andrews was my bridge between Babysitters Club and Trixie Belden to authors like Stephen King and William Faulkner. My sister and I devoured the Flowers and Heaven series. I read Dawn but didn't love it, and I gave up on Ruby. 

V.C. Andrews was always a bit of a mystery. By the time I started reading her books, she had been dead for several years. Pre-internet days I wasn't able to find out much about her. Neiderman (who has been her ghostwriter since she passed away in 1986) admits that she was very reclusive, hated giving interviews, and basically lied a lot about things she didn't want to talk about like her age and her health issues. As a result, this "biography" was very short, about 150 pages. It was pretty repetitive. I was disappointed. I was hoping for more. He included an unfinished book Andrews had started (I was shocked he didn't finish it at some point over the last 30 years) which was not really interesting. It felt like, if Andrews had lived longer and had a chance to write more, she would have kept treading over the same tired ground. It's unfortunate, considering how groundbreaking Flowers was. She just couldn't seem to move on from those themes.