A Possible Influence? The Works of Margery Lawrence

While working on the next entry for this blog, I came across this quote: "he forced upon me what should only be given in love."  This line regards Julian raping Cathy in the upcoming section and is--I thought--a classic example of Andrews' strangely coy descriptions of all things sexual.

Except I took a closer look, and it isn't.    

In fact, this line is a direct quote from a 1930 novel,  The Madonna of Seven Moons, by Margery Lawrence.  The only difference between Madonna and Petals is that the Madonna quote is in third person, while Petals is of course in first person.  Criterion describes the film adaptation of Madonna of Seven Moons as a "lurid tale of sex and psychosis" about a woman who was raped by gypsies.

The little I found on a quick research of Margery Lawrence is that she was a writer of occult mysteries in the 1940s.  She was very much into spiritualism and published a couple of books on the subject; she prefaced some of her (obviously fictional) Gothic works with a disclaimer stating that they were true stories with the names changed for privacy.  Cambridge University's Orlando index, which catalogs the works of female British authors, describes her work thusly:  Female sexuality looms large in her work and she often places female characters in impossible predicaments, often involving social convention, money, or class.

It's too little info to make a connection to Andrews, but I did find it interesting that the most outstanding conventions of this woman's work sound like things that could be said of Our Gal Ginny.  It sounds as if Lawrence could have very well be an influence on Andrews, and the direct quote strongly implies that Andrews read The Madonna of Seven Moons. 

I feel it necessary to point out that I do not imply Andrews may have plagiarized this other author.  One lifted line does not a plagiarist make.  Writers brains are like flypaper for unique phrases, which tend to get regurgitated without our realizing it.  Recently in my own fiction, I had to go back and edit the opening of a scene when I realized it too closely resembled the opening of a similar scene in a published novel.  I'm sure that if I had to bear down to catch a whole three paragraphs, a line or two here and there has probably slipped under my radar.  That's how we writers roll.

Margery Lawrence's works are sadly out-of-print, and the few copies available are antiques far out of my price range.  She seems to be well-known enough to have a Wikipedia article, but obscure enough that I can't find any scholarly papers on her work--and believe me, us desperate English majors will dig up writers you've never heard of in order to stand out in our field.  I do not have quite enough time to do any in-depth research investigating other potential links between the two authors. But if there's a thesis anywhere in this, I call dibs.

I Chase the Wild, Elusive Butterfly of Andrews: a short essay with no immediate application

There is an astonishingly tiny universe of biographical information about V.C. Andrews.  A significant proportion seems to be obfuscation disseminated by Andrews herself.  For example, she liked to understate her real age even after her biographical information became widely available.  As Andrews remained a very youthful-looking woman right up to the end of her life, she could get away with the ruse.  There are two apparent origins for this small vanity: one, as told by E.D. Huntley in V.C. Andrews: a Critical Companion* states that young Andrews may have lost some friends when they discovered she was nineteen, rather than sixteen, and that thereafter she always knocked a few years off her age.  The other is the notorious People interview that essentially ended all interviews with Andrews.  People reported Andrews' age accurately as fifty-six.  Andrews, furious, fired off a letter to a fan where she claimed to be "twenty years younger."

I don't call this lying. I call it a small, understandable vanity.  God knows she's not the only woman in the world who ever misrepresented her own age.  But even with limited insight into Andrews' psyche, one knows that she never did anything for just one reason.  Perhaps, feeling that she had lost out on her young adulthood through illness and immobility, she decided to celebrate a second youth once she had the money and power to do so.  Perhaps she wanted to be as young and glamorous as the women in her writings, either for emotional reasons or to sell her image to the public.  Perhaps she had been understating her age for so long that she really believed she was thirty-six.  Whatever her reasons, I personally find this a sweet, sympathetic fib, a deception that harmed no one. 

Knowing that the mutability of age that is a prominent theme in Andrews' work, it is hard not to read a direct parallel with the author's life.  Cathy sets twenty-six candles into Paul's birthday cake because that is the age she wishes him to be.  Vera in My Sweet Audrina changes her age to reflect however she's feeling that day, from sixteen to twenty to thirteen; Audrina herself has no ability to determine the ages of others and must rely on what they choose to tell her, with each individual choosing to remain the age they like best.  In Heaven, Kitty, a glamorous thirty-five, is obsessed with looking twenty.  And in arguably the most famous example, Heaven's grandmother Jillian literally suffers a complete mental breakdown when confronted with her true age, accompanied with the gripping image of her youth peeling from her face like the layers of an onion.  These examples are simply the ones that come to mind immediately; I can think of half a dozen others.

For all the ribbing I give to Andrews' stylistic quirks, the truth as I see it is that that she was a woman who wrote close to her own bones.  Because there is such an obvious personal component in her novels, coupled by the lack of concrete information with the woman herself, it is hard not to read too much into the text, if only to satisfy one's curiosity for a woman who deliberately made herself elusive.  In this way, Andrews begins to remind me of the shadowy, long-dead mother figures in both the Dollanganger and the Casteel series.  (The first) Corrine Foxworth and Leigh Van Voreen hover over both these sagas without physically manifesting**, influencing from beyond the grave the course of the heroines' lives.  Both families are haunted by the legacies of these beautiful, dead woman.  Somehow, I don't think this interpretation would have displeased Andrews herself.         










*Yes, there are critical guides to Andrews' work written by people who are not me.  

**Well, Leigh does but we'll get to that later.

Petals on the Wind, Part Six: In Which We are Going to Carry On as if Nothing Happen

After confronting Julian with her upcoming nuptials, Cathy goes back home for--oh look, another Christmas.  Considering that this book culminates in a dramatic Christmas Eve face-off, I'd like to say that making Christmas a constant touch-point is Andrews's way of foreshadowing, but I think she just really really enjoys gift-porn. 

"Thank God I had Paul to escape to," Cathy gushes.  "And I wasn't going to let Julian take the joy from this Christmas.  For this was the time Paul and I had agreed to announce our engagement, and the only person who could ruin my happiness now was Chris."  AND HE WILL.

Oops, I Did It Again

For the second time since the inception of this blog, Your Humble Narrator almost died.  This time it was pneumonia.  I'm much better now, but I'm starting to blame the books.

Updates are forthcoming!  But then again, so is tornado season, and we all remember what happened last time.  I promise, I won't stop blogging for anything less than an F3.

Burt Reynolds' people have not written back.  :-(

This Is the Greatest/Geekiest Moment of My Life

Dear Mr. Burt Reynolds:

If you are reading this, it means your publicists have passed along my letter seeking your personal endorsement for this blog.  As you can see, we* are a small-scale operation here at the VCA Blog-O-Rama, but I assure you, we take our mission as seriously as any professional publication.  I like to think that what we lack in credibility, we make up in baseless speculation.

But you may be asking yourself, why me?  And why V.C. Andrews?  What could a tanned, taut, venerable silver fox such as myself have to do with the late author of the best-selling novel Flowers in the Attic?

Not going to lie.  It's the moustache.

Moustaches not only play a large part in the works of V.C. Andrews, but I have determined, based on my extensive literary analysis of her novels, that the moustache is, in fact, a critical thematic element.  The moustache motif arches like a protective umbrella, sheltering and encompassing Andrews' entire literary canon.  You and your moustache have become our mascot, our muse.  At times, your name has comprised up to 20% of our search hits.**  I would further like to note that the main writer of this blog is based in Alabama, one of the settings for your classic 1977 action-comedy Smokey and the Bandit.  

Previous familiarity with V.C. Andrews and/or the content of this blog would be considered a bonus, but is not necessary. Your endorsement would receive a prominent placement immediately below the header, with all proper attributions appended.  We would appreciate a single catchy, upbeat, positive quote reflective of your devil-may-care screen personae.  Any mention of moustaches, mice, or doughnuts would also be welcome.  You will of course be compensated for your contribution.***

We thank you for your consideration, and we eagerly await future correspondence.


Yours sincerely,
The Fifth Dollanganger





*And by 'we' I mean 'me."


**Specifically, on 5 January, 2012, this blog received 77 unique hits, 15 of which came from searches for "Burt Reynolds porn."

***Do you accept baked goods?

Petals on the Wind, Part Five: In Which They Actually Leave the House

The next chapter takes up immediately after Cathy finishes screaming about her pain from across the dinner table. Chris objects that they don't need to go to Virginia to look for evidence of Cory's death because it's entirely possible that he could have died of pneumonia, the way their mother said he did.

A) I don't see how what he died of precludes anyone from getting those records and trying to find out where the kid's buried so that if nothing else they can get some closure, and

B) YOUR LITTLE SISTER TESTED POSITIVE FOR ARSENIC POISONING.  CATHY TESTED POSITIVE FOR ARSENIC POISONING.  YOU YOURSELF TESTED POSITIVE FOR ARSENIC POISONING.  YOU GAVE THE MOUSE A DOUGHNUT THAT YOUR YOUNGER SIBLINGS HAD BEEN EATING, AND IT WENT TOES-UP AN HOUR LATER.  FUTURE MEDICAL DOCTOR, EVERYBODY!

The original version of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" was a very short, traumatic book.

Carrie, by the way, hasn't stopped crying since this car trip was proposed.

Back to the Big Screen?

From Variety, 13 January 2012:

Pair Nabs Rights to V.C. Andrews Library

Dan Angel ("Door to Door") of the Hatchery has purchased rights to the V.C. Andrews library and teamed with Jane Startz ("Ella Enchanted") to develop and produce feature films, TV series and telepics based on Andrews' works. Angel and Startz announced the partnership Friday.

There are currently 70 Andrews books, launched in 1979 with "Flowers in the Attic," with worldwide sales of over 106 million copies in 95 countries in 26 languages in stories combining elements of Gothic horror and family secrets. Andrew Neiderman, who's penned 44 books under his own name, has been the ghostwriter of Andrews' books since her death in 1986. The latest addition is "Family Storms" and its sequel "Cloudburst," released in the fall. Paranormal love story "Into The Darkness" will be published in March and "The Forbidden Sister will be published in the fall 2012, followed by its sequel "Roxy's Story."

"V.C. Andrews is such a major cultural icon and has been for the last three decades," Startz said. "Her collected works are a treasure trove of genres--romance gothic, paranormal -- with highly original and often outré stories that have enormous multigenerational and multicultural appeal."

Angel's credits include "The Haunting Hour," "Dan Vs." and "Gifted Hands." Startz produced "The Indian in the Cupboard," "The Mighty" and "Tuck Everlasting." Simon & Schuster UK, long-term publishers of V.C. Andrews, said in a statement, "We are delighted that Virginia Andrews will find a new audience through this exciting collaboration with The Hatchery and Jane Startz Prods., taking this global brand to even greater heights."

In 2007, the Hatchery and Jaffe/Braunstein announced plans to develop a miniseries for Lifetime based on the Andrews' "The Landry" but the project didn't come together.

The $1,244,910.84 Question

Since this piece deals so heavily in disclaimers, here's one of my own:  the following post is not some brilliant piece of investigative journalism, believe me.  It's all available in legal records, although those records suffer  from being really boring, full of legalese, and in the main irrelevant to our interests here.  For a fascinating few hours' reading, however, go to The Estate of Virginia C. Andrews v U.S.


The Official Fiction: In the Faces of Fear* interview a year before her death, Andrews claimed to have notes for sixty-three future stories, although she was a little vague about whether or not these were individual novels or full sagas. While I wouldn't be surprised by either, I'm guessing she meant novels (if only because the idea of anyone having notes for sixty-three five-book series intimidates the bejeezus out of me).

After Andrews's death, her publishers actively perpetuated the idea that Andrews left behind an unspecified number of completed novels, which they planned to publish one by one.  A little later, the story evolved that Andrews's estate was working with a carefully selected writer to "complete" Andrews's unfinished novels.  Still later, the claim was that the estate was working with that same "carefully selected" author to write stories inspired by Andrews.


The Problem: If there is any grain of truth to the Official Fiction, then by the date of this writing her ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, has produced very nearly seventy novels under Andrews's name, meaning that either we are fast approaching the end any potential leftover Andrews-fodder or we are in the "inspired by" stage and have been for quite some time.


The $1,244,910.84 Question: when, exactly, did V.C. Andrews stop writing?  Which books are hers, which were written by the ghostwriter, and which are a posthumous collaboration between the two?  What became of the mythical sixty-three future novels?

As it turned out, the only person who could answer that question was the IRS.

More Fun With Keywords!

In the past two weeks, there's been an upsurge in traffic (although, in the spirit of full disclosure, I don't exactly advertise this blog, so an 'upsurge' in my case is something like twenty unique hits) from a search for "hate flowers in the attic."  I try to keep abreast of all things Andrews and have not noticed any recent developments that would cause people who did not previously hate Flowers in the Attic to begin doing so in any great numbers.  I can only assume that either

A) people who already hated Flowers in the Attic are looking for kindred spirits; or,
B) I am now known in internet circles as "that chick who hates Flowers in the Attic."

I can't stress this enough.  I don't hate Flowers in the Attic.  Let's just say . . . I enjoy Flowers in the Attic in a way it was not intended to be enjoyed.

That being said, there have been a significant number of hits from searches for "tom selleck porn."  Y'all know who y'all are.

Petals on the Wind, Part Four: Greetings from the Boarding School from Hell

Without warning, the novel turns to one of the more interesting, yet inexplicable tangents in the whole series, an incident that will become a standard in Andrewsland for several series to come: the Boarding School from Hell.  This is kind of a long one.

But let's let Cathy tell it, shall we?