Does (Did) anyone else read V.C. Andrews novels? I don't read them as much but the woman's life has always intrigued me. I've always wanted to know what "happened" in her life that caused this *spoiler* incest *spoiler* obsession.
I remember when I was eleven years old, picking up
Flowers in The Attic and reading it. It was the first 'adult' novel I had read, and I read it MANY times after that.
Then on a website (
MySpace.com - V.C. Andrews - 86 - Female - - www.myspace.com/savevcandrews)
I discovered this "theory" about Ms. Andrews.
"There was something strange about the house where I grew up. There were shadows in the corners and whispers on the stairs and time was as irrelevant as honesty...There was a war going on in our house, a silent war that sounded no guns, and the bodies that fell were only wishes that died and the bullets were only words and the blood that spilled was always called pride."
Thus begins My Sweet Audrina, the fourth novel by VC Andrews, who, by its publication in 1982, was one of the best-known horror writers in the Western world, enjoying an accumulated time on the New York Times bestseller list of over 13 months.
Her earliest books, which catapulted her to fame, dealt with dark themes of incestuous love, bittersweet beauty, jealous greed, and innocence betrayed. In spite of the controversy engendered by her work in the early '80s, millions captivated by the unimaginable cruelty and byzantine revenge that flowed from her pen. Yet, in spite of her popularity, little is really known about Andrews and rumors about her have circulated for over twenty years.
Some say VC Andrews is the nom de plume of a man. Some believe her books were autobiographical rather than fictional. Stories painted her as a former ballerina, crippled in an accident, living and writing in a dark world of madness. Some say she never existed at all and has been ghostwritten by a team of writers since before her purported death.
Whether fueled by the compelling horror of Andrews' own subject matter or fed by a Simon and Schuster marketing ploy to bolster sales, the lack of substantive biography on the author makes it hard to tell. Compiled biographies list her given name as either Cleo Virginia or Virginia Cleo Andrews, who was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on June 6, 1923. An accident at age 15 left her paraplegic and her creative interests shifted from ballet dancing to painting and writing. In 1973, she attempted to published a novel entitled The Obssessed, which was repeatedly rejected because of its formidable length of several thousand pages. She never married nor had children and remained in her mother's home in Virginia Beach where she succumbed to cancer on December 19, 1986.
Two things seem odd about these biographies. First, there is the discrepancy in her name. Even the official website, provided to Simon and Schuster by Andrews' family, lists her name alternately as Cleo Virginia and Virginia Cleo. Certainly her own family should have been the final authority on clearing up that confusion. Second, all biographies list her age as 62 at the time of her death. Yet if the birth and death dates are correct, she would have, in fact, been 63.
Though a passport, issued in 1982, on her official website indicates her name is Cleo Virginia Andrews with a birth date of June 6, 1923 in Virginia, there is no one by that name listed on the Social Security Death Index. There is a Virginia C. Andrews with that birth date, who was born and died in Virginia, but in 1979.
A perusal of the first editions of her novels reveals a change in copyright over the years. Flowers in the Attic was published in 1979. The copyright holder is Virginia C. Andrews. Petals on the Wind was published in 1980. The copyright holder is Vanda Productions. In the books all the way through Dark Angel, published in 1986, the copyright is held by Vanda Productions. Beginning with Fallen Hearts in 1988 and for all subsequent books, the copyright is held by The Virginia C. Andrews Trust. The first book to mention her death is Dawn, published in 1990.
A little digging on Vanda Productions reveals a petition filed with the IRS by the Andrews Estate in 1992. They had paid two million dollars in taxes and wanted some back, claiming the IRS had overvalued the VC Andrews name. According to the petition, Pocket Books had contracted for Andrews to write Garden of Shadows in 1987. Andrews' agent, Anita Diamant, had signed the contract as the owner of Vanda Productions. She claimed she didn't realize that Andrews was dying of cancer when she agreed to the contract and testified that she had never even discussed the contract with Andrews herself. It included a $3 million advance on Garden of Shadows.
Pocket Books threatened to renege on the contract and Vanda Productions hired Andrew Niederman to ghostwrite Garden of Shadows, which was published in 1987 with a copyright still held by Vanda. The Estate contracted with Niederman to ghostwrite all subsequent books in keeping with the "children in jeopardy" theme of Flowers in the Attic; using words and phrases common in Flowers in the Attic (e.g. characters have "cerulean blue eyes", are "cock-eyed optimists", and "grind tears" from their eyes with "tiny fists"); but avoiding the incestuous relationships that had made the first series highly controversial in 1979 and continuing to use Andrew's name in a manner that would suggest she was still living.
Niederman started balking. He wanted a new contract that allowed for the disclosure that Virginia Andrews was, in fact, dead and he was her highly successful ghostwriter. The Estate caved in 1990, drew up a new contract, and put a notice in the first editions of Dawn, explaining that Andrews was dead, but had left behind many manuscripts and ideas and the family would be working with writers to flesh out those ideas. Royalties dropped by 35% on the publication of Secrets of the Morning in 1991 and the family wound up in front of the IRS trying to explain why they shouldn't have to pay two million dollars in taxes.
We may never know the truth or falsity of the rumors. The true identity and life story of this much-loved author may have gone to the grave along with VC Andrews, if such a person even existed. But given the information in the compiled biographies and the court briefs on the tax hearing, I propose the following hypothesis:
Virginia C. Andrews was a real woman who died in 1979 just as the Social Security records reflect. She had first attempted to publish The Obssessed in 1973, but it was turned down because it was "too long". In 1979, she pared that book down to what we now know as Flowers in the Attic and died shortly after its publication. It was a phenomenal success that pulled down $8,000 in 1979 dollars. So her family decides to cash in on this by publishing the remainder of the overlong The Obssessed as the next six novels (Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, My Sweet Audrina, Seeds of Yesterday, Heaven, and Dark Angel). They form Vanda Productions, headed up by Anita Diamant, who may or may not have even known that Virginia was really dead (her family was painting her as a disabled recluse with bizarre behavior).
By the publication of Dark Angel in 1986, the books are off-the-charts successful. Dark Angel alone brought in two million dollars. But now the family has a problem. They're out of material. Virginia didn't leave them anything else. So they hire Niederman and keep the facade going. Sort of like the publishing world's answer to "Weekend at Bernie's". Niederman ghostwrites Garden of Shadows, Fallen Hearts, Gates of Paradise, and Web of Dreams. They're bringing in almost $3 million apiece.
But Niederman blew the whistle on them and poor Virginia had to die. In 1990, the family publically, but vaguely, announces her death to the readership. After the publication of Secrets of the Morning in 1991, the family's problems get worse. Royalties drop off sharply when the readers find out Virginia's dead, but poor Virginia just got a bill from the IRS for $1.3 million in back taxes dating back into the 1980's. The family's lost money and can't pay. And Virginia herself can't pay because she's having this serious post-mortem problem.
So the family petitions the IRS and claims Virginia died in 1986. That's the earliest they can have her die and not have either Niederman or Diamant rat them out. In court, Diamant looks like a fool and has to confess that she agreed to the contract on Garden of Shadows without having spoken with Virginia and without even knowing that Virginia was so terminally ill she was going to die in less than a month.
The confusion as to whether her name is Virginia Cleo or Cleo Virginia comes from the passport reproduced on her "official" website by the family and claiming to reveal "VC's real name and birthdate". Cleo and Virginia share a birthdate and a name coincidence (there's nothing official to suggest that Virginia's middle name was Cleo, only that it began with a C). The issuance of the passport in 1982 masks the fact that Virginia had actually been dead for three years.
If it's even partially true, it reads like...well...like a VC Andrews novel, the plot twists and dark deeds easily rivaling anything in her bestselling stories. But did Virginia herself get the last laugh from beyond the grave?
A controversial "pitch letter" written in 1978 from Andrews to Diamant suggests that Flowers in the Attic was "not truly fiction", but never actually states that it was autobiographical either. Did Andrews write it on her deathbed as an allegorical prediction, knowing her greedy mother (like the book's fictional mother) would sell her out for a fortune? Did she know that she would be buried in an anonymous grave just as one of her characters was buried? Did she know that the initial C in her name would become of some significance later, just as it was for her earliest characters?
"So, like Charles Dickens, in this work of 'fiction' I will hide myself away behind a false name, and live in fake places, and I will pray to God that those who should will hurt when they read what I have to say. Certainly God in His infinite mercy will see that some understanding publisher will put my words in a book and help grind the knife that I hope to wield." (From Flowers in the Attic)
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