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Her Dark MaterialsShould children read Philip Pullman's trilogy—or the incest classic Flowers in the Attic?

By Emily BazelonPosted Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007, at 6:03 PM ET

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As bad as this prose is—in the Seattle Weekly, one male writer quipped that V.C. Andrews ruined the women of his generation—it's also compelling. I'm with the blogger who writes, "I don't get it, why would anyone write such a story? It is such a horrible story, so dark, so tense, so wrong. Everything about it is wrong. It repulsed me. But still I kept reading." I also understand this blogger: "When I was compulsively reading Flowers I thought it was a work of genius. Nothing short of being shaken would've pulled me out of that book. I wasn't learning the what-not-to-do lessons; I was learning how to use melodrama, suspense and betrayal."

Andrews might have appreciated these reluctant tributes. Her real name was Virginia Cleo Andrews. She was born in 1923 and was always coy about her age. She never married, lived with her mother after her father died when she was 20, and published her first book at 55, decades after a fall down the stairs that eventually left her unable to walk on her own. The line from wheelchair confinement to attic prison is too easy to draw. Andrews' commercial success may not have freed her—she never did author tours and rarely granted interviews—but it has given her a sort of immortality. She sold Flowers in the Attic to Pocket Books for $7,500. By the time of her death in 1986, Pocket was so enamored of her sales figures that the publishers took advantage of Andrews' lack of celebrity and didn't let on that she'd died until they'd hired a ghost writer and published several more books under her name. Andrew Neiderman has since been outed as the author of 39 of the 44 books in the V.C. Andrews franchise. Her name has made other people so much money that the IRS deemed it a taxable asset and sued her estate for about $1.2 million.

No mother in her right mind would choose to teach her daughter about sex via Cathy and her brother/father-figure lovers. My mom took a look at Flowers when I brought it home (from camp, I think, ever a useful font of sin) and told me it was dreck. When I insisted on reading it anyway, she decided to make me talk about it with her rather than take it away. Good work, Mom.

I don't think there's an analogue for boys for Flowers and its sequels—too-adult, utterly sexualized, mesmerizing. But if my sons find that book, I hope I can talk them through the over-intensity, too. In the meantime, the lesson of Flowers holds for good books that tempt readers before they're ready for them: If your kid won't put the book down, help him make what sense he can of it. It could be worse, a lot worse. In the end, my generation of women wasn't really ruined. We almost all survive the stories that we were too young to hear.

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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and an editor of DoubleX.

COMMENTS

Notes from the Fray Editor

Many excellent posts on this one, and a continuing theme of recommending subversive and secret books to a new generation of readers: Sobrutal, below, called his post "Seductive forbidden book." Also mentioned were Kurt Vonnegut, John Norman's Gor series, Maia by Richard Adams, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (which has some Fray resonances), and Piers Antony, splendidly described by neglekted as "a smut peddler for young boys and girls alike."

Comments from the Fray

I saw my mom reading The World According to Garp when I was twelve and asked her if I could read it when she was finished. She flat out forbade me to read it. The next day I bought the book at the same used book store she did. What a great book and what a great author. I bought his other coming of age books not because of the sex, though there was plenty of that, but for the beauty of the language and the interesting people John Irving wrote about.

I plan to forbid my son from reading it when he turns twelve.

--Sobrutal

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It is of no surprise that protecting our children is such a strong urge at all times. I am disappointed that this urge becomes stronger when it comes to knowledge, thought and ideas. I am glad to see many reader's comments and Ms. Bazelon's comments in the piece speaking to guidance through more mature content rather than forbidding [which many concede as a powerful endorsement]. I personally believe we provide a disservice to our children by defaulting to holding them back, keeping various doors of knowledge shut as long as possible, waiting for the right age to spring new topics on them. Along with this behavior is our fear that all children will succumb to the temptations of corruption, debauchery and chaos offered by a world of possibilities. The children I have met in my life are smart little bastards, aware of the game they and their parents are playing, which may cause more damage to their souls than exposure to some of the sad and disappointing things we can get caught up in as adults.

--aix42

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