Guest Post: Revealing the Attic Secrets by Lorraine Elgar

Lorraine Elgar is the co-creator and Admin for the Attic Secrets group on facebook, and the author of the fascinating Attic Secrets blog which delves deeper into the original novels by (the real) V.C. Andrews. Today she has written a guest post for us about her love of V.C. Andrews and the creation of Attic secrets ...

Revealing the Attic Secrets 
by Lorraine Elgar

Everyone has a story of how they discovered V C Andrews, my own is pretty standard – a bored nine year old digging through a cupboard and discovering a tattered book with the most amazing cover I’d ever seen.

A dark house with a bright red roof and a beautiful, if haunted, looking girl peeking out. The font, bright white called out to me Flowers in the Attic, Virginia Andrews. The back was a mixture of bright red text – It was a game of happy families – It was a game of hide and seek – It was a case of tender, loving murder – with the black font of synopsis. Ok I was sold, completely intrigued and within three days I’d devoured that book from front to back.

Over the years that book haunted me and I found myself compelled to reread over and over the story I could now probably recite in my sleep. I couldn’t explain why, but something enthralled me, had captured my soul at a young age and wasn’t giving it back. Every time I returned to the attic, I discovered something new, something I hadn’t thought of before and as I matured, through childhood, through adolescence, through motherhood I found new parts I could identify with.

No other book, nor author, has ever been able to achieve that for me.

In late 2013, I excitedly discovered they were to remake Flowers in the Attic into a movie and that there were fan sites on Facebook and fans on Twitter who felt exactly like I did. I also discovered there were many articles and people who tended to jump on the “V C Andrews bashing “ wagon, delighting in insinuating readers of V C A were into incest.

Thank God for Neisha Chetty, co-creator of Attic Secrets, who was the only person who actually stood up online and not only passionately but also intelligently pointed out the subtle genius that was Virginia Andrews. Here was a person that put into words exactly why I found V C Andrews works so compelling, who spoke out of things in the books I’d always suspected but been too embarrassed to say for fear of ridicule. She also expanded my mind and made me re-look at the books and again I felt that initial joy and wonder I did that first time.

After a year of discussing theories and debating, Neisha encouraged me to set up the Attic Secrets group for us to work on together, bringing together fans from all over the world who were fed up of being ridiculed and wanting to discuss the interacies of her works, the hidden symbolism within her text , the psychology of her characters and their complexities.

Attic Secrets main aim is to preserve V C Andrews Legacy, to strip away the incest fest tag, and look at the influences she herself used to create her work. Together with the fans we showcase the fandoms love through their creations , their opinions and discuss aspects of the book.

I’m delighted to say this month Attic Secrets turns one , and within that year we have been able to produce some fantastic exclusives for the fans including access to the cast and crew of FITA The Stage Play which premiered in New Orleans to rave reviews, we've created a successful blog which is followed worldwide, have a popular twitter account and tumblr blog.

Working with the other fan groups and pages we have bought our fans live chats with the ghost writer Andrew Neiderman, interaction with the lifetime movie stars and my own timelines of the Dollanganger Saga and My Sweet Audrina can be found on The CompleteVCA website. Most importantly, working across the fandom bought the most exciting and important thing to happen in the past thirty years when Jessica Zinder of The Lost Angels of VCA managed to find the unpublished works of VCA in the Boston Archives and entrusted myself and Attic Secrets to analyse these works.


Attic Secrets is definitely a labour of love, and its members have become like family.

Bio

Lorraine Elgar is co-creator of Attic Secrets, as well as running its successful blog, twitter and tumblr accounts, she analyses and researches all things VCA.

Lorraine lives in the UK with her partner and two children.

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