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Charles Dickens would often start his novels with the birth of the protagonist and, being a favorite author of both mine and Chris’s, I would duplicate his style—if I could. But he was a genius born to write without difficulty while I find every word I put down, I put down with tears, with bitter blood,
Very toxic to think that, just because an author is famous, doesn't mean they didn't struggle.
Chris liked this
Love was a word lavished about in our home. “Do you love me?—For I most certainly love you; did you miss me?—Are you glad I’m home?—Did you think about me when I was gone? Every night? Did you toss and turn and wish I were beside you, holding you close? For if you didn’t, Corrine, I might want to die.” Momma knew exactly how to answer questions like these—with her eyes, with soft whispers and with kisses.
Toxic?
“The moment I saw that box, I knew you had to have it. And with this ring, I do vow to forever love my Cathy just a little bit more than any other daughter—as long as she never says that to anyone but herself.”
Giving your daughter a promise ring? Toxic
I thought I would hate them both, especially the loudmouthed one named Carrie, who wailed and bellowed ten times louder than the quiet one named Cory. It was nearly impossible to get a full night’s rest with the two of them across the hall from my room.
Fully expecting her to kill her siblings or something
“See,” said Christopher, “doctors do know everything.” Daddy looked up from the newspaper he was reading and smiled. “That’s my son the doctor talking—but nobody knows everything, Chris.”
Toxic
“Aw, heck, Momma, I hate dressing up,” he complained, scuffing his sneakers and scowling. “Do as I say, Christopher, for your father. You know he does a lot for you; the least you can do is make him proud of his family.”
Toxic
“Well, Corinne,” joked Jim Johnston, “I guess Chris has found himself another super-broad.” His wife threw him an angry look for saying something so tasteless.
Toxic
“We’ve already questioned motorists who witnessed the accident, and it wasn’t your husband’s fault, Mrs. Dollanganger,” that voice continued on, without emotion. “According to the accounts, which we’ve recorded, there was a motorist driving a blue Ford weaving in and out of the lefthand lane, apparently drunk, and he crashed head-on into your husband’s car. But it seems your husband must have seen the accident coming, for he swerved to avoid a head-on collision, but a piece of machinery had fallen from another car, or truck, and this kept him from completing his correct defensive driving
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All of that detail and description was NOT necessary.
“Our days are numbered . . . that’s the way it is, from the day we’re born, our days are numbered.”
No one in this book talks like a normal person
Your father is dead, and his soul has gone on to heaven, and you should understand at your age that no one ever has come back from heaven.
Jesus would like a word with you
“Yes, Momma, I know exactly what you mean,” Christopher piped up. “You did something of which your father disapproved, and so, even though you were included in his will, he had his lawyer write you out instead of thinking twice, and now you won’t inherit any of his worldly goods when he passes on to the great beyond.” He grinned, pleased with himself for knowing more than me. He always had the answers to everything. He had his nose in a book whenever he was in the house. Outside, under the sky, he was just as wild, just as mean as any other kid on the block. But indoors, away from the
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Good job at "knowing more" when you repeated back exactly what was said to you. Again, nobody talks like this.
Oh, you just don’t realize the kind of empire your grandfather controls, even now, while he’s on his last legs. He has a genius for making money. Everything he touches turns to gold.”
Toxic
I supposed I’d have my own maid to lay out my clothes, draw my bath, brush my hair, and jump when I commanded. But I wouldn’t be too stern with her. I would be sweet, understanding, the kind of mistress every servant desired—unless she broke something I really cherished! Then there’d be hell to pay—I’d throw a temper tantrum, and hurl a few things I didn’t like, anyway.
Toxic
“But are you sure they are intelligent? Do they have some invisible afflictions not apparent to the eyes?”
Toxic
“They’re only children,” Momma flared back with unusual fire. “Mother, you haven’t changed one bit, have you? You still have a nasty, suspicious mind! Christopher and Cathy are innocent!” “Innocent?” she snapped back, her mean look so sharp it could cut and draw blood. “That is exactly what your father and I always presumed about you and your half-uncle!”
Toxic, also EWW?
Until the day your grandfather dies, you are here, but you don’t really exist.”
TOXIC
On those days, the children will hide in the attic until the maids finish.
Title drop?
“Girls and boys are never to use the bathroom together.” I felt a hot blush stain my cheeks! What kind of kids did she think we were?
Incest children is what
God sees everything! God will see what evil you do behind my back! And God will be the one to punish when I don’t!”
Toxic
The meal finished, I neatly stacked the dishes back on the tray. And only then did I remember we’d forgotten to say grace. Hastily we gathered together at the table and sat down to bow our heads, and clasp our palms together. “Lord, forgive us for eating without asking your permission. Please don’t let the grandmother know. We vow to do it right next time. Amen.”
Toxic
if I ever catch boys and girls using the bathroom at the same time, I will quite relentlessly, and without mercy, peel the skins from your backs.”
Toxic
you will refrain from looking at members of the opposite sex unless it is absolutely necessary.
All eye contact is now sexual
you will eat all of the food I bring to you, and not waste one single bit, or throw it away, or hide it away. It is sinful to waste good food when so many in this world are starving.
Toxic
you will stand at attention when I enter your room, with your arms straight down at your sides; you will not clench your hands into fists to show silent defiance; nor will you allow your eyes to meet with mine; nor will you seek to show signs of affection toward me, nor hope to gain my friendship, nor my pity, nor my love, nor my compassion. All of that is impossible. Neither your grandfather nor myself can allow ourselves to feel anything for what is not wholesome.”
Sins of the father yadda yadda
He gestured toward the list, which he folded and flung away toward the dresser. It made a poor airplane.
Toxic
“Do you think our ancestors were so undecided during the Civil War they didn’t know which side they were on, Christopher?”
I get there's context to this question, but what a weird thing to ask given the circumstances
I tried to shut out the visions I had of him falling, splattering down, breaking his arms, legs or, even worse, his back or neck!
Not a thought a child would have
Now, it didn’t really offend God’s eyes if we put Cory and Carrie in the same bathtub, when they’d come from the same womb, did it?
“This is a strange house, and the people who reside here are even stranger—not the servants, but my parents. I should have warned you that your grandparents are fanatically religious. To believe in God is a good thing, a right thing. But when you reinforce your belief with words you take from the Old Testament that you seek out, and interpret in the ways that suit your needs best, that is hypocrisy, and that is exactly what my parents do.
That might be the most sane thing anyone in this book has said so far.
She got up and came to us, and she fell down on her knees again and tried to wrap us all in her embrace. “Haven’t I told you before he hasn’t got long to live? He gasps for breath every time he exerts himself in the least way? And if he doesn’t die soon, I’ll find a way to tell him about you. I swear I will. Just have patience. Be understanding. What fun you lose now, I’ll make up for later on, a thousandfold!”
I feel like she could kill him just by saying she's been hiding four incest babies in his attic
“But,” said my cheerful optimist Christopher, “any day could see him gone. That is the way of heart disease. A clot could break free and find its way to his heart or lung and snuff him out like a candle.”
The way they keep saying this makes me think that their mother is going to die and they're going to stay trapped in the attic by their grandmother while their grandfather lives another 10 years.
“Never again will a trunk lock inadvertently,” he said, “for I smashed every last lock and the wardrobes, now they won’t lock, either!”
That definitely won't get you immediately beheaded by the wicked grandmother
“You leave her alone!” Chris exploded the moment the door closed behind his goddess.
Freud would like a word with Chris
What would childhood be like without believing in Santa Claus? Not the kind of childhood I wanted for our twins!
Toxic
When they stopped dancing, he kept his arm around her shoulders, or her waist—and once he dared to even touch her breast!
Once again, children who have been outlined to have no concept of sexuality let would see no issue with this
“People are multi-faceted, Cathy. To us, our mother is only our mother. To others, she is a beautiful, sexy young widow who is likely to inherit a fortune. No wonder the moths all come swarming to encircle the kind of bright flame she is.”
*Claps hands with every word* CHILDREN DO NOT THINK LIKE THIS
“I guess I must have overlooked telling you something—for there isn’t anything you can do to prevent menstruation. You have to accept all of nature’s ways of changing your body from that of a child, into that of a woman. Certainly you don’t want to remain a child all your life, do you?”
Modern medicine and puberty blockers would like a word
“We are going to teach the two of you to read and write,” said Chris. With loud wails they protested. “No!” howled Carrie. “We don’t want to learn to read and write! We don’t write letters! We want to watch ‘I Love Lucy’!”
For once in this book I can say, "same, kid."
the dying grandfather, now sixty-eight, always about to breathe his last breath,
Holy shit, homie isn't even that old. God damn, these children are gonna be up here for 20 years.
He found a small red prick on my arm where the grandmother had plunged in a hypodermic needle to keep me asleep with some drug. And while I slept, she had poured hot tar on my hair. She must have gathered it all into a neat bunch before she used the tar, for not a strand was left free of the gook.
What in the ever holy fuck?
Dazed and tired, I turned my head for no reason at all just to look at Chris and Cory, and I lay without much feeling at all as I watched Chris take his pocket knife and slash his wrist. He put his bleeding arm to Cory’s mouth, and made him drink his blood, though Cory protested. Then it was Carrie’s turn. The two of them, who wouldn’t eat anything lumpy, bumpy, grainy, too tough, too stringy, or just plain “funny looking,” drank of their older brother’s blood and stared up at him with dull, wide, accepting eyes.
What the actual fuck is the point in any of this?
It was obviously drawn now. Our mother didn’t care anymore what happened to us.
Toxic
I threw myself down on the floor, crossed my legs, and busied my brain with clever ways in which I could get to buy the best property first, and the railroads, and the utilities, and I’d get my red houses up first, then the hotels. He’d see who was good at doing something better than him.
Explained in case you didn't know how to play Monopoly.
We held each other carefully. Our bare bodies pressed together; my breasts flattened out against his chest. Then he was murmuring my name, and tugging off the wrapping from my head, letting loose my spill of long hair before he cupped my head in his hands to gently ease it closer to his lips. It felt odd to be kissed while lying naked in his arms . . . and not right. “Stop,” I whispered fearfully, feeling that male part of him grow hard against me. “This is just what she thought we did.” Bitterly, he laughed before he drew away, telling me I didn’t know anything. There was more to making love
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STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
that part of him he seemed so taken with—and measuring it too! “Why?” I asked, quite astonished to learn that the length mattered. He turned away before he told me once he’d seen Daddy naked, and what he had seemed so inadequate in size. Even the back of his neck was red as he explained this. Oh, golly—just like I wondered what size bra Momma wore! “Don’t do it again,” I whispered. Cory had such a small male organ, and what if he had seen and felt as Chris did, that his was inadequate?
STOP
“Haven’t I done the best I could by you? Where did I go wrong? What do you lack? You knew how it would be until your grandfather died. You agreed to stay here until he did.
Yes, because two children agreeing to be locked in a room 2.5 years ago is completely legally binding
He stood and gazed at her with soft compassion, forgetting the tar in my hair, and the weeks without food, and the dead mice he would make tasty with salt and pepper—and
Why the hell AREN'T they telling their mother about these facts?
She ignored what I implied and rhapsodized on: “The reason I was gone for so long, and what I found so difficult to explain—I’ve married a wonderful man, an attorney named Bart Winslow. You’re going to like him. He’s going to love all of you. He’s dark-haired and so handsome, and tall and athletic. And he loves to ski, like you do, Christopher, and he plays tennis, and he’s brilliant, like you are, darling,” and she was looking at Chris, of course. “He’s charming and everybody likes him, even my father. And we went to Europe on our honeymoon, and the gifts I brought to you all came from
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100% the husband has no idea that she has 4 kids locked away and neglected
