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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d68a52f7d1bc6578b440655fa5053cb0.jpg]]
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3->''"Look, I'm not pretending this woman is Tolstoy. But she's a fantastic storyteller with a world view. What separates the writers who really hit is a world view. Plot is not ultimately enough. ''{{Literature/Flowers|InTheAttic}}'' is not really a plot novel; it is a novel of sensibility, perception and, in a funny way, introspection."''
4-->-- V.C. Andrews' editor '''Ann Patty'''
5
6Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as V.C. Andrews (June 6, 1923 – December 19, 1986), was an American author, mainly known for family-themed {{Thriller}}s.
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8A voracious reader as well as a skilled artist and designer, Andrews didn't really get serious about writing until she hit middle age. After finishing quite a few unpublished manuscripts, her debut novel ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic'' came out in 1979, and quickly gained notoriety for a subplot involving BrotherSisterIncest, but that infamy translated into huge sales. In its wake, Andrews wrote several sequels and produced other novels. Plagued with health problems throughout her life, Andrews died of breast cancer at age 63 in 1986. She never married, nor had children.
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10Andrews has since become perhaps equally notorious for the manner in which her work has OutlivedItsCreator. The real Virginia Andrews published only seven books in her lifetime. After her death, however, a ghostwriter (Creator/AndrewNeiderman) quietly took over at her publishers' behest, and has continued to churn out novels under the Andrews pen-name for decades ever since, basically turning "V.C. Andrews" into a brand. Quite where the lines are drawn between any genuine unfinished manuscripts he may have completed, works "inspired by" her ideas but otherwise his own, and works entirely plucked from his imagination, remains officially unacknowledged. More than ''seventy'' books by him have appeared under the Andrews name, though -- over ten times more than the original author ever managed, and unabating even as the centenary of her birth approaches.
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12It is widely agreed by V.C. Andrews fans that OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight, and there is a particular disdain for Neiderman. The original books she ''actually wrote'' are something of a CultClassic.
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14In 2022 Neiderman published a biography of Andrews, ''The Woman Beyond the Attic''.
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16----
17!! Works:
18[[index]]
19* ''Literature/DollangangerSeries''
20## ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic'' (1979)
21## ''Literature/PetalsOnTheWind'' (1980)
22## ''Literature/IfThereBeThorns'' (1981)
23## ''Literature/SeedsOfYesterday'' (1984)
24* ''Literature/MySweetAudrina'' (1982)
25* ''Literature/CasteelSeries''
26## ''Literature/{{Heaven|1985}}'' (1985)
27## ''Literature/{{Dark Angel|1986}}'' (1986)
28* ''Gods of Green Mountain'' (completed in 1972; unpublished during her lifetime; released as an e-book in 2004)
29[[/index]]
30
31----
32!! Tropes that apply to her:
33
34* GenreBusting: Andrews' work is hard to classify because it skirts the edges of a bunch of genres but doesn't fit into them. Andrews basically felt she was a genre unto herself, and other commentators like [[https://culture.org/dark-family-2/ writer Sara Gran]] agree.
35-->"Though there’s an obvious debt to [[Creator/AnneBronte the]] [[Creator/CharlotteBronte Brontë]] [[Creator/EmilyBronte sisters]], nineteenth-century sensation novels like ''Literature/LadyAudleysSecret'', and Creator/DaphneDuMaurier's [[GothicHorror Gothic fiction]], at heart Andrews’s novels have little in common with the genres where they ought to fit. They’re too offbeat for romance, too slow to qualify as thrillers, too explicit for Gothic, and far too dark and complex for young adult. Many booksellers shelve them with horror, but Andrews’s concerns with family, emotion, and relationships put her books firmly outside the genre. Although the supernatural makes brief appearances in Andrews’s work, her largest topic is the all-too-natural tragedy of families gone wrong."
36* MiddleNameBasis: She went by her middle name Virginia her whole life, even switching around her initials for her author's credit. Also intersects with MeaningfulName, since she was from UsefulNotes/{{Virginia}}, and the state itself embodies a lot of the OldMoney and SouthernGothic themes that showed up in her work.
37* MoustacheDePlume:
38** The reason she was OnlyKnownByInitials. She said in a 1985 interview:
39--->'''Virginia:''' The publisher sent me a copy of the galley ''of Flowers in the Attic'', and it read "Virginia Andrews." Then, when they sent me the cover, it said, "V.C. Andrews." So I immediately called up and complained. And they said, "It was a big mistake by the printers, and we can't change it--we've already printed a million copies of the cover and it's too expensive to throw them away." Then later, I learned the truth. It was an editorial decision. Men don't like to read women writers, and they wanted men to read the book. They wanted to prove to men that women could write differently--that we don't write only about ribbons and frills and kisses and hugs, that we can really write something strong.
40** Outside of the US, where V.C. Andrews was marketed toward women, the books were published under the name "Virginia Andrews." Ironically, since her cult status has risen after her death, some of these foreign editions have changed the name to her more familiar (in the US) initials.
41* ReclusiveArtist: While she didn't exactly shun the spotlight (she even did a publicity tour in the UK at one point), Andrews was still a fairly private person even after the Dollanganger books catapulted her into literary stardom. Some of this was due to her physical condition: she spent most of her adult life in a wheelchair, due to a combination of a painful bone spur and chronic rheumatoid arthritis, and still required her mother Lillian as a caretaker. But she was also annoyed at how stories about her played up her disabilities, incorrectly claiming she was paralyzed. As a result, she only gave a handful of interviews. Also, perhaps a bit self-conscious about achieving success at an advanced age, she flat-out refused to divulge how old she was. When she died, news outlets guessed that she was in her 40s or 50s, rather than the actual 63.
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43----
44!! Tropes common in her works:
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46* BigFancyHouse: Foxworth Hall in the Dollanganger Series, Farthinggale Manor in the Casteel Series, and Whitefern in ''My Sweet Audrina.''
47* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Foxworths are slightly ahead of the Tattertons in terms of incest and insanity, but only because they've been at it longer. Yet the Adares of ''My Sweet Audrina'' manage to pack a lot of crazy in a fairly small house.
48* DiedOnTheirBirthday:
49** ''Flowers in the Attic'': At the beginning of the story, Christopher, Sr. is killed in a car crash while driving to his 36th birthday party.
50** ''Petals on the Wind'': Julia kills Scotty on his 3rd birthday as part of a MurderSuicide. They both drown.
51** ''My Sweet Audrina'': The first Audrina dies on [[ArcNumber her 9th birthday on September 9]].
52* DomesticAbuse: Another thing she is famous for. While her plots may be soap-opera like, her depictions of abuse--and even more, people's ''reactions'' to said abuse--are chillingly realistic.
53* DysfunctionJunction: Good luck finding a character in her work who ''doesn't'' have deep psychological damage.
54* EarnYourHappyEnding: The classic Andrews trope is "young girl in desperate situation dreams of better life; works, struggles, and schemes to achieve her dreams; finds out her dreams are actually even ''worse'' than the life she just escaped; repeat for five books." The ''lucky'' V.C. Andrews heroines make peace with their pasts, but rarely do they reach a happily-ever-after.
55* TheFilmOfTheBook: ''Flowers in the Attic'' had a modestly successful [[Film/FlowersInTheAttic big screen adaptation]] released in 1987. More recently, Creator/{{Lifetime}} has produced an extensive MadeForTVMovie series of Andrews adaptations, starting with a well-received ''Flowers'' [[Film/FlowersInTheAttic remake in 2014]], though after running out of the actual Andrews-penned books they've turned to adaptations of the Neiderman books. Neiderman's ''Rain'' also got a feature adaptation in 2006.
56* GenerationalSaga: Both the Dollanganger and Casteel series.
57* GothicHorror: Andrews was credited for codifying the "children in peril" genre, in which children are frequently the victims or prisoners of their own caregivers, often with lots of Gothic trappings (grand, labyrinthine houses, convoluted family secrets, and so forth).
58* ReadingIsCoolAesop: It's not merely that Cathy and Heaven both ''love'' reading, but--more specifically--that they both use the escapism of stories as a way to cope. Virginia was a [[MostWritersAreWriters writer and book lover]], after all.
59* ShockParty: There's a party, everyone is gathered to celebrate, and then disaster strikes. Maybe the person whose birthday it is never arrives to the party. Maybe the guests don't arrive. Maybe someone makes a scene. But almost every party in her books goes awry in one way or another.
60* SouthernGothic: Foxworth Hall in the Dollanganger books is located in UsefulNotes/{{Virginia}}, and as a result the stories broadly fit the category, even if they don't really display the conventions of the genre.
61* ThemeNaming: The book collections have names with a noticeable theme: The Literature/DollangangerSeries has floral names ("Flowers", "Petals", "Thorns," "Seeds," "Garden") while the Literature/CasteelSeries uses angelic themes ("Heaven", "Angel,").
62* TroubledAbuser: There is often a cycle of abuse in place, and many of the abusers are victims themselves.
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