Alice Hart's Lost Flowers
Alice Hart's Lost Flowers -or The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, by its original English title, is the literary debut of Australian television presenter and author Holly Ringland. The work was published for the first time on March 19, 2018 by the publisher Harper Collins. In 2019, it was awarded the prestigious ABIA award for best book of the year in the fiction category.
Later, its translation rights were sold to twenty-eight countries. In Spanish, The novel was translated by Gemma Rovira Ortega, and was edited by Salamandra. Subsequently, Amazon Prime Video produced an eponymous drama series directed by Sarah Lambert and starring Sigourney Weaver, Lea Purcell, Alyla Browne and Alycia Debnam Carey.
Synopsis of Alice Hart's Lost Flowers
A house on fire and a lost voice
The story begins with the awakening of Alice Hart in a hospital, where he is due to a terrible fire that took away his parents and left her temporarily speechless due to trauma. The only family he has left is June, her maternal grandmother, who runs a plantation known as Thornfield. In addition to flowers native to the region, the farm houses homeless women.
Most of them are fleeing a bad marriage, violent men and a life in crisis. During his period on the plantation, Alice regains her health and confidence, while learning about the meaning of flowers and what they are capable of transmitting. As he grows older, he shares happy moments with his grandmother and the people on the farm, however, behind this there are secrets and lies.
Beyond the flowers
Alice discovers certain aspects of her family that, although she suspected, she did not fully realize. At twenty-six years old, The woman escapes from the plantation, leaving no trace of her whereabouts. After leaving he arrives at the central desert, where he finds a landscape that seems taken from a science fiction novel. Thus, far from the flowers that she loves so much, she finds herself fragile and vulnerable.
Alice's past follows her wherever she goes. Like the women she has believed with, She is attracted to a charismatic man. However, will she be able to not repeat the same patterns as her mother and grandmother? Apparently, she doesn't get it. Much of the magic of Alice Hart's Lost Flowers is knowing the traumas of the protagonist and accompany her in her rebirth.
Scenarios in Alice Hart's Lost Flowers
The landscapes in the novel are represented in a delightful way. These are both a metaphor for Alice's situation and a character in their own right. The protagonist grows up in the middle of sugar cane and the ocean, but Life takes her along the path of the exotic flowers of Australia. On the other hand, there is a park in the Northern Territory where Alice gets a job as a park ranger.
The natural environment is as much a part of the characterization as the people: the ocean, the river, the red dirt of the desert and the impressive sunsets. There is a kind of magic that is woven throughout the book, mainly from the language of flowers, which works in conjunction with the semantic story, but which has its own silent meaning.
The importance and meaning of flowers
Flannel flowers represent "what is lost is found", Sturt's desert peas, which are an integral part of the plot, mean "have courage, take heart" and the foxtails mean "blood of my blood."
These plants become Alice's language when words fail her. They function as subtext in conjunction with a variety of other intertextual elements. The same could be true of the poems and fairy tales referred to.
Added to the above are, of course, the stories of other cultures brought through characters like Twig —the caretaker of the young protagonist—, Koori —for whom Alice becomes a surrogate daughter— and the Mexican friend Lulu —who tells her stories of Bulgarian fairies and whose son becomes Alice's first love—.
Style of the work
Although the story moves quickly—driven primarily by Alice's attempts to escape her past— the writing itself is repeatedly poetic, filtered through the prism of Alice's point of view. Her narrative remains beautiful, even when she describes the most egregious abuse of her, such as when the main character's father pushes her off a boat into the ocean for failing to give an order to flee to a passing stranger.
There are many themes covered in this book, but the most common is the power of books and non-verbal language., which is used to heal. Literature opens up Alice's world and gives her the key to finding herself. Male violence grows throughout the novel and moves like a malevolent force, forming a parallel line from Alice's father to her subsequent male relationships.
About the author
Holly Ringland was born in Australia, where she lived surrounded by nature since she was very young. This generated in her a passion for all living beings and the study of them. Also She is fond of culture, history and art, especially literature, a professorship that he had the opportunity to put into practice during several years throughout his life, especially during his trip to England.
She and her family traveled across North America in a caravan for two years, which added to the experience around nature. When the author was twenty years old, worked as a ranger in an indigenous community in Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia. She then moved to England to study for a master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.