Plot
In 1957, the Dollanganger family—father Christopher, mother Corrine, 14-year-old Chris, 12-year-old Cathy, and 5-year-old twins Carrie and Cory—live an idyllic life in Gladstone, Pennsylvania, until Christopher Sr. is killed in a car accident, leaving Corinne in debt with no means to support her children.
On the verge of their home being foreclosed, Corrine reveals to the children that as a young woman, her marriage to Christopher so offended her multimillionaire father Malcolm Foxworth that he disinherited her. Now, the elderly Malcolm is dying of heart disease, and Corrine intends to return to her childhood home of Foxworth Hall in Virginia to win back her father's affection in time to be reinstated into his will. Because Malcolm is unaware that Corinne had children by her marriage to Christopher, the children must hide in a secluded upstairs room of the enormous Foxworth Hall until Corinne can break the news to her father. She assures the children that they will only be in the room for a few days.
At Foxworth Hall, Corrine’s mother (called only "the grandmother") locks the children in a bedroom connected to the house's large attic. The grandmother forces Corrine to reveal to her children that the reason for her disinheritance was that Christopher Sr. was Malcolm's younger half-brother, thus Corinne's half-uncle, and that the children are the products of incest. The grandmother believes the children are "the Devil's spawn" and is obsessed with the idea of incest, forbidding all contact between opposite sexes, while prohibiting the children from making noise or opening the room's windows. Only in the attic are they free to play.
Cathy and Chris attempt to make the best of the situation by decorating the attic with paper flowers to create an imaginary garden for the twins. The grandmother comes every morning with a picnic basket filled with the day's food and interrogates the children about their modesty and piety, questions the children are too innocent to fully understand. Initially, their mother visits several times per day, bringing toys and gifts, but over time, her visits grow sporadic. After months have passed, Cathy and Chris confront her, as she promised they would be freed in only a few days. Corinne finally confesses that they must remain in the room until their grandfather dies.
A year later, Cathy and Chris have both entered puberty, while the twins are stunted from inadequate nutrition and lack of sunlight. With no other outlets, Cathy and Chris develop a romantic and sexual attraction toward each other, though they do their best to deny their feelings. The grandmother catches Chris staring at a half-dressed Cathy and punishes the children by cutting off their food supply for over two weeks, while the children pray their mother will reappear in time to save them. On the verge of starvation, Cathy and Chris decide to escape with the twins to find help. Before they can go through with the plan, the grandmother begins bringing food again, including a rare treat of powdered-sugar doughnuts. Soon afterwards, all the children begin to complain of constant minor illness.
Another year passes. After an absence of several months, Corrine visits the children, explaining that she had been on a European honeymoon with her new husband, Bart Winslow. Cathy and Chris are furious, but fear Corinne will abandon them permanently if they confront her.
Realizing that the twins' health is declining, Chris and Cathy decide to escape. Chris creates a wooden skeleton key. Over the next several months, Cathy and he take turns slipping downstairs to their mother's suite to steal cash and jewelry to fund their lives outside. One night, Cathy discovers her sleeping stepfather and kisses him. When Chris learns of the kiss, he rapes Cathy in a fit of jealousy and rage. Afterwards, he is overcome with remorse, while Cathy feels guilty and conflicted about the act due to her love for Chris.
One of the twins, Cory, becomes deathly ill. Cathy begs Corrine to take him to a hospital, but Corrine hesitates. Cathy, enraged, tells her that if she does not act to save Cory's life, Cathy will reveal their existence to the grandfather. Corrine finally takes Cory away, but returns the following morning to inform the children that Cory died of pneumonia. The children are devastated, with Cathy left wondering if Cory's death is God's punishment for her sexual assault from Chris.
Chris resumes stealing from their mother's rooms, only to discover Corrine and Bart have left Foxworth Hall permanently. Eavesdropping on the servants, Chris learns their grandfather died a year ago and that the grandmother has been leaving food contaminated with rat poison in the attic due to a "mouse infestation". Chris connects this with the doughnuts they are being fed and realizes Cory died of arsenic poisoning.
The three remaining children finally leave Foxworth Hall to catch a train to Florida. At the station, Chris reveals he discovered Corinne's inheritance is conditional upon her having no children from her first marriage, and she, rather than the grandmother, was the one who most likely poisoned them. Chris and Cathy decide against contacting the authorities, as their main concern is to stay together, but Cathy vows that one day she will make Corinne pay for her crimes.
Adaptations
In 1987, the book was adapted into a film of the same name, starring Louise Fletcher, Victoria Tennant, Kristy Swanson, and Jeb Stuart Adams, and directed by Jeffrey Bloom.
A second adaptation was released on January 18, 2014, on Lifetime, starring Heather Graham as Corrine and Ellen Burstyn as the grandmother, with Kiernan Shipka as Cathy, Mason Dye as Christopher, and directed by Deborah Chow. [5] The film received mixed reviews, but critics praised Ellen Burstyn's performance.
The book was adapted into a stage play by V. C. Andrews's ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, in the form of an e-book; it was published by Pocket Star. The stage play was released in October 2014 and is 80 pages long. In August 2015, the stage play received its world premiere production in New Orleans. The play, which received positive reviews, [6] was produced by See 'Em On Stage: A Production Company and was directed by Christopher Bentivegna.
In 2022, the Lifetime network released a television limited series called Flowers in the Attic: The Origin, starring Kelsey Grammer and Kate Mulgrew. The four-episode miniseries is a prequel that focuses on Olivia Foxworth, and is largely based on Garden of Shadows , the fifth novel of the Dollangager series.
