Trivia / Garden of Shadows

• Canon Discontinuity: No doubt due to the fact that a ghostwriter wrote this, rather than Andrews herself, Garden of Shadows contains plenty of both major and minor details that contradict information given in the rest of the series, particularly Flowers in the Attic. These examples are all told first person so a lot can be attributed to an Unreliable Narrator (Olivia in telling the story of how she turned into a cold woman buried in religion out of shame, while Corrine is telling stories to her children she knows are being held practically prisoner, making it hard to accept either character's words as the truth), while others are plainly continuity errors.
  • In the previous Dollanganger books, Corinne's name is spelled "Corrine." However, in Garden of Shadows, it is spelled "Corinne".
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine and her children arrive at Foxworth Hall in August, yet in Garden of Shadows, a light snow is falling when they arrive. While snow in August is not impossible for Virginia, it's a very rare occurrence—and in any case, in Flowers, there's no mention of snow.
  • There is no mention of Olivia's childhood dollhouse ever being given to Corinne, though in Flowers, Corrine claims she was given her mother's dollhouse as a child.
    • There's two potential explanations for this. One is that Olivia's father dies very early in Olivia's marriage to Malcolm. As his sole heir, Olivia inherited all her father's belongings and might have brought some of them to Foxworth Hall, dollhouse included. But his death also invokes an important conflict between Malcolm and Olivia as Malcolm tries to assume control over Olivia's financial assets, which in turns sets up the reveal that Malcolm only married her for her father's fortune. The dollhouse's return would have been less significant to the overall story than that revelation. The other possibility is that Shadows skips over a large chunk of Corinne's childhood from her birth until she's about twelve. Olivia may have given her the dollhouse during those glossed-over years, and by the time we catch up with her again, she's simply too old to play with it. (It's still a bit of an oversight that the fate of such an iconic object wasn't better established, even if there is a reasonable explanation for the lack.)
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Christopher, Sr. dies at age 36; in Garden of Shadows he dies at age 35. (This may be because it was his birthday.)
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells her children that Olivia was abused by her mother (she was locked in a closet, causing Olivia's claustrophobia and unwillingness to go into the attic). Shadows does mention that Olivia's mother once locked her in the closet as punishment when she misbehaved and she experiences a brief moment of claustrophobia the first time she enters the attic, but mostly Olivia's recounts a warm and loving relationship with a gentle mother, and she visits the attic several times (especially after Alicia goes into hiding there) without incident.
  • In Garden of Shadows, Malcolm, Jr. dies in a motorcycle wreck just beyond the driveway of Foxworth Hall, an accident Corrine witnesses. In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine states that her brother did indeed die in a motorcycle accident, but on a winding mountain road while traveling to a private cabin he had built, and that Corrine only found out after the fact, along with the rest of her family.
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells her children Joel ran away from home and only sent a single postcard, while in Garden of Shadows, Olivia mentions he sent her many newspaper clippings while he was touring with the symphony. Corrine recalls Joel saying goodbye to his parents, while in Garden of Shadows, Corrine was not present when Joel left and only found out after he was gone.
    • Again, there's a possible explanation: Joel left under heavy disapproval from his father and may have been sending Olivia the clippings in secret, a fact Olivia kept from Corrine (who might not have been able to keep the secret from her father).
  • In Garden of Shadows, Olivia is said by everyone, including herself, to be extremely plain and unattractive, while in Flowers in the Attic, Corinne states that Olivia was generally considered a handsome woman when she was young. The difference here may simply be that Olivia suffers from low self-esteem, believing herself to be less attractive than others really see her.
  • In Garden of Shadows, Olivia and Corrine have a very close relationship and Olivia states that it was impossible to keep herself from loving Corrine, while in Flowers in the Attic, Olivia proudly states that she thought Corrine to be trash from birth (although it is more than likely the events since then that make her look back more with disgust than fondness).
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Olivia screams at Cathy and Chris that their parents eloped secretly and came back to ask forgiveness for falling in love. However, in Garden of Shadows, Olivia catches Christopher, Sr. and Corrine making love. This leads to a confrontation with Malcolm and Olivia, after which Christopher and Corrine willingly flee Foxworth Hall.
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells Cathy that she was 12 and out riding her bicycle when she got her first period, and that she came home to change clothes several times before her mother bothered to tell her what was happening. Corrine recalls being angry that she wasn't informed before the fact. In Garden of Shadows, however, Corrine is 14 and proudly shares the news with Olivia, and she seems to have been more or less forewarned that menstruation marks her passage into womanhood.
  • Garden of Shadows, does not mention Olivia's ever-present diamond brooch, nor any close friends that make her gray dresses (Flowers in the Attic). In fact, Garden of Shadows says that Olivia had no friends in Virginia, finding the women too stupid, frivolous, and catty for her liking. (Again, it's possible that Olivia acquired the brooch and the dressmaking friend in the sixteen years between the events of Shadows and Flowers, even though Corrine speaks of the grey dresses as if this has been Olivia's preference prior to Corrine leaving home.)
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine writes several letters to her parents asking for help. In Garden of Shadows, Olivia responds back to Corrine after the first letter arrives.
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine states that when she wrote her parents for help after Chris, Sr.'s death, Malcolm wrote a reply stating that the only thing good about Corrine's marriage was that she did not have children. In Garden of Shadows, Olivia writes this response and mentions that she didn't let Malcolm see Corrine's letter for fear that Malcolm might be touched by Corrine's children's beauty and forgive the sinful circumstances of their birth.
    • One possible explanation is that by this point, Malcolm was still recovering from his heart attack and Olivia was in the habit of handling his personal mail, therefore she could have kept the news from him. Corrine received the letter and assumed it was her mother writing for her father, when in fact Olivia told Malcolm nothing but wrote the letter as if he already knew everything in order to intimidate Corrine. In Petals on the Wind, however, we find out he really did know the whole time, and it's hard to imagine that Corrine didn't occasionally mention her children to her father (at least at first) after coming to live with him unless she was ordered not to by Olivia. Such an order would have given Olivia's whole deception away, but perhaps by that point it didn't matter anymore, considering that both Corrine and her children were firmly trapped under her parents' thumb.
  • Olivia's son Malcolm, Jr. is nicknamed "Mal" to differentiate him from his father. The earlier books in the series stated that he was known as "Mel."
  • Garden of Shadows shows that John Amos meets Corrine for the first time when she is 14, while it is mentioned in If There Be Thorns that John Amos lusted after her since she was 10.
  • In Garden of Shadows, John Amos is introduced as Olivia's cousin. A throwaway line in Flowers in the Attic reveals they're actually third cousins. Since most people wouldn't bother to clarify their degree of kinship under normal circumstances, this can probably be overlooked. Though it might have become more important in If There Be Thorns, when John Amos marries Corinne. While John knows that Corinne is not Olivia's daughter and thus isn't related to him at all, Corinne doesn't know this.
  • In Garden of Shadows, Christopher is named Christopher Garland Foxworth. In Flowers in the Attic, his name is Garland Christopher Foxworth the Fourth.
    • In a further instance of retroactive discontinuity, Christopher, Jr. is named after his father, Christopher Garland Foxworth III (called Garland in Shadows). In the much-later ghostwritten prequel Under The Attic, Garland's full name is Garland Neil Foxworth.
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells the children that her parents had forced her and her brothers to attend church every Sunday no matter what. In Garden of Shadows, there is no mention of the family ever attending church. Malcolm himself doesn't take to religion until after Corrine runs away with Chris, Jr.
    • It would appear this lie is mostly on Corrine. Olivia buried herself deeper into fanatical religion as a result of her life with the family. So she acts like this by the time Flowers in the Attic rolls around, which Corrine could exaggerate like she had always been that way.
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells the children that she and her brothers were not even allowed to go swimming, as this would involve exposing their bodies, but that she used to swim in secret at a nearby pond. In Garden of Shadows, Olivia allows Corrine to go swimming at the pond with Christopher and thinks nothing of it. This ties in with the above observation.
  • In Flowers in the Attic, Olivia expresses hatred towards her grandchildren because of their incestuous conception, even physically and emotionally abusing them. In Garden of Shadows, she feels drawn to them and actually wants to love them, but decides against it because of what their parents had done. This maybe the origins of her brief flickers of kindness toward of the children in the first novel (for example, the moment where she gives them "real flowers for [their] fake garden").
  • In Flowers in the Attic and previous novels, Corrine maintains that she and her brothers were all abused by her father. But in Garden of Shadows, Corrine was doted on and spoiled by Malcolm, while her brothers were treated with notable harshness in comparison. Moreover, Malcolm was abusive to his sons even before Corrine came along; afterwards he was so indulgent toward his daughter that his cruelty to his sons was even more noticeable by comparison, to the point that the boys are well aware of the disparity. By the time of Flowers, Corrine clearly was trying to portray her father in the worst possible light, and perhaps trying to win her children's sympathy by painting herself as a "poor little rich girl," while Olivia, in a way, only served to back up Corrine's version of events by her treatment of both Corrine and the children. (When an old man's willing to lock you in an attic for merely being alive, it's easy to believe he was always this way toward everyone.)
• Died During Production: V.C. Andrews had allegedly written around 100 pages of Garden of Shadows before her death in 1986. After her death, the contract for the book was passed on to a ghostwriter. In spite of the publisher's claims that the ghostwriter had simply completed Andrews' original work, it was later proved in court that, due to rights issues held by Andrews' estate, the ghostwriter was not allowed to use any of Andrews' material and that the published version of Garden of Shadows was solely the work of the ghostwriter. (These rights issues extended to all books published after Andrews' death. None of those books were either written by Andrews or based on her notes.)
• Extruded Book Product: Of a sort. Ghostwriter Neiderman stated that he fed all of Andrews' previous works into a computer program that analyzed their vocabulary and grammatical structure, then studied the results in order to match her writing style as closely as possible. While fans familiar with Andrews' distinctive voice can probably tell the difference, Garden of Shadows comes much closer to emulating her style than many^note (most) future installments.

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