56 pages • 1 hour read
Holly RinglandThe Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Black Fire Orchid”
Content Warning: This section of the guide references family trauma and grief, child abuse, domestic violence, and suicidal ideation.
At age nine, Alice Hart sits at her writing desk and dreams of ways to set her father on fire. Her dad, Clem, is physically abusive to Alice and her mother Agnes. Clem has mood swings, so he is sometimes sweet and other times violent. Agnes is pregnant; her due date is soon.
Alice talks with her dog Toby and reads about fire myths. Fire can remake things. Alice wishes she could give her dad a rebirth through fire so he would always be kind.
In their countryside home with a garden, her father has a shed Alice has never been inside. Since her parents are at a doctor’s appointment, she and Toby investigate the shed. Alice finds many “beautiful” wood carvings of a young girl, the girl’s mother, and an older woman with various flowers. She sets the lantern down and grabs several of the carvings, planning to burn them.
When a storm kicks up, Alice and Toby flee toward the house as her parents arrive home. Clem is angry that Agnes let the doctor touch her when she stumbled, and he becomes more furious when he sees Alice with his carvings.
Though Alice cowers inside and Toby tries to protect her, Clem beats her until she’s unconscious. Alice remembers the lantern in the shed, and she smells fire before she passes out.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Flannel Flower”
Alice recalls her mother’s stories, the first of which details how Agnes almost died giving birth to Alice in the car. Due to a flood and storm, Clem couldn’t get them to the hospital. Though Agnes almost died, when she heard Alice’s cry, her heart restarted. Agnes called Alice her “fairytale” who woke her.
Alice always adored her mother’s stories and helping her in the garden. From age six onward, she helped garden. Among their plants and flowers, Agnes was happy. She talked to herself and taught Alice the meaning of each flower, such as how lemon myrtle means “love returned.” They also talked about libraries, which Alice imagined as a garden of books.
At age seven, Alice ventured into town when her parents were away. She disobeyed their rules and found the library. The librarian, Sally, treated her kindly. Because of Alice’s dirty clothes and lack of shoes, Sally called her husband John for help. Though Alice liked Sally, she snuck books and hurried home before her father found out. Clem didn’t allow Alice to go to town, so Agnes homeschooled her.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Sticky Everlasting”
Alice recalls that when Clem found out about her library card, he ripped it in half and beat her senseless. To make up for it, he agreed Alice could have a library card, but he would go get her books if she obeyed the rules. He also brought Alice a puppy—Toby—whom Alice loved as her best friend.
One day, Clem brought Alice surfing for the first time. Alice adored the sea. When Clem told her she could stand up, she danced the hula. They laughed. A boat came by, and Clem waved and told Alice to dance for the people. She was too shy, and the boaters left. Though Alice apologized, Clem pushed her in the sea. She had to swim for her life toward shore. Agnes swam out to save her. The family never discussed the conflict.
In the garden one day, Agnes told Alice she was going to have a baby sibling. Alice was so thrilled, she cried. For a while, Clem was gentler. The beatings stopped.
A few months later, Agnes went into the sea with a faraway look. Alice found her trying to drown herself; she was covered in bruises. Clem hadn’t stopped hurting her. Agnes finds comfort and a reason to survive in Alice.
A few weeks later, before Alice read about fire, she gardened with Agnes. When they smelled smoke from another farm, her mom told her about controlled burns. They were like magic spells that transformed plants. Alice thought she needed a fire spell for her dad.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Blue Pincushion”
In the present day, Alice hears a gentle voice saying she’s going to tell Alice a story. Alice remembers waves of fire, the smell of roses, and smoke consuming her. She drifts in and out of consciousness.
Sally, the librarian, finishes reading Alice a book. Her husband, John, a police officer, was on the scene of the fire. Clem had beaten Alice unconscious, and the fire consumed their property. Clem and Agnes died.
When Sally’s friend Brooke, the nurse, explains that they contacted Alice’s grandmother to be her guardian, Sally feels terrible. Sally believes she should have taken Alice from the library to safety two years ago. Sally also thinks that Clem is her own biggest secret. Since Alice’s grandmother June is coming soon, Sally leaves in tears.
Alice slowly wakes up.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Painted Feather Flower”
Alice awakens in a hospital with a breathing tube. She looks for the storyteller (Sally), but she doesn’t return. Alice has a panic attack, but Brooke calms her with deep breathing. Dr. Harris tells Alice about the fire and that her parents are both gone; Alice is lost in grief. She feels guilty, thinking the fire was her fault.
For days, Alice doesn’t speak or eat. She’s deep in grief over Agnes. She has panic attacks and night sweats due to nightmares about the fire. Since she doesn’t eat, she accepts the feeding tube.
One day, Brooke arrives with a package of books. Alice is overjoyed. She reads her favorite book about selkies, which she checked out from the library long ago. Brooke brings her grilled cheese and other goodies. Alice finally eats.
Soon after, Brooke and Dr. Harris tell her she’s going home with her grandmother June. Alice stares at June, who is a stranger. She doesn’t want to leave Brooke or her hometown.
At June’s car, a giant dog named Harry greets her. Alice still doesn’t speak. She hopes Brooke will stop the situation, but Brooke gives her a teary goodbye. Alice ignores June’s chatting and pushes Harry away. June drives them toward central Australia, where she owns a flower farm.
Brooke reflects on everything that Alice and Agnes went through, detailing the aftermath of the fire as she searches for her “emergency” cigarettes in her purse. After Clem realized the house was on fire, he dragged Alice—still unconscious from his beating—outside before attempting to save Agnes. However, Clem succumbed to smoke inhalation, and Agnes couldn’t be resuscitated. Brooke thinks about Agnes’s abuse, the fact that she so feared Clem that she’d written a will, and the baby boy who was “pulled from Agnes’s dying, beaten body” before she picks up the phone to call Sally (56).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Striped Mintbush”
As they drive hours to June’s farm, Alice thinks of her family, especially Agnes and her unborn sibling. She misses them and Toby deeply.
June tries to comfort Alice, but she fails. Her son, Clem, never let her meet Alice. She promises Alice she’ll never feel unsafe again at her flower farm. June wishes she could drink from her whiskey flask to stop her tremors, but she resists. Her resin bracelets, with butterfly bush flowers that mean “second chances,” tinkle on her wrists. She recalls Dr. Harris telling her that children who experience trauma often develop selective muteness, but June hopes Alice will talk.
At the flower farm, June tells Alice the flowers have a secret language. Alice seems interested but doesn’t respond. Alice misses the sea, but she likes the acres of pretty flowers since they remind her of Agnes. June tells Alice she will always be there for her. She settles Alice and her belongings into her bedroom upstairs.
Once Alice is asleep, June talks with Twig, her close friend. Twig confirms that June didn’t take Alice’s baby brother—who also survived—home too. June retreats to her room with whiskey.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
Thematically, the novel establishes Relationships with the Natural World early in the novel through the imagery of flowers and other flora in Agnes’s home garden. As Agnes’s happy place, the garden makes her feel serene and content, rather than on guard and fearful due to Clem’s abuse. Alice learns to appreciate nature and the secret language of flowers from an early age because of Agnes’s positive relationship with the earth: “the truest parts of her mother bloomed among her plants. Especially when she talked to the flowers” (16). This connection to flowers and the messages they convey continues throughout the novel. The floriography also foreshadows that June knows the flowers’ language too and will teach Alice more about flowers’ meanings according to their family’s dictionary. Speaking through flowers is particularly useful for Alice due to her muteness; the flowers give her a symbolic way to speak without using words. Though Alice is too young to understand, that Agnes and June share the language of flowers foreshadows the later revelation that Agnes once lived at Thornfield Farm with June.
The early chapters also highlight the figurative and imagery-heavy language that comprises Ringland’s prose. As a work of literary fiction, the novel concentrates on character growth, sensory imagery, and the craft of writing. Ringland employs detailed description, as well as metaphors, similes, and symbols. When Alice is asleep in the hospital, the author’s literary language comes through in Alice’s dream: “Fiery waves rose, crashed and rose again, a stampede of glowering beasts. [...] Around her it rippled, constantly changing, a flare of aqua, a splash of violet, a burst of tangerine” (39-40). The author’s attention to word choice, the five senses, and the reflection of Alice’s emotional and physical state through the symbol of fire demonstrates Ringland’s use of literary language. Other examples highlight the book’s focus on the natural world, especially plant life, such as “Their spines faced upwards, the way flowers in her mother’s garden turned their faces towards the sun” (51), and “Some had trunks as white as fairytale snow while others were an ochre colour, as glossy as if covered in a slick of wet paint” (59). These lines exemplify Ringland’s prose and the novel’s consistent and fluid syntax.
The symbols of water and fire, specifically, first appear in the early section of the novel. From the first line, fire is a prominent and ominous feature: “nine-year-old Alice Hart sat at her desk by the window and dreamed of ways to set her father on fire” (2). Alice’s interest in fire as a form of rebirth and transformation—like the phoenix in her book—at first represents renewal. Later, after her family’s house burns down and her parents die, the element symbolizes loss, grief, fear, and destruction. Fire indeed made Alice’s life anew, but not in the way she hoped; the guilt from this accidental fire leaves Alice feeling guilty for years. It burns into her memory as a trauma that she works to process. Furthermore, when Alice moves inland with June, she is also leaving the sea, which represents solace, pleasure, and freedom to her. In contrast, the drier land of the flower farm—like fire—is new and scary.
As Alice loses her parents and experiences physical and emotional pain, The Long Process of Overcoming Trauma and Grief comes to the fore. Physically, she reacts to the loss through panic attacks, night terrors with sweating, and an inability or unwillingness to speak. She cries often, plagued by grief and “what if” questions, such as dwelling on how things might have been different had she never gone into her father’s shed. These thoughts consume her, making her unable to eat for a while. Alice’s muteness, specifically, represents her lack of words to describe her pain over losing her family and Toby. Her speechlessness also represents her oppression in the face of her father’s cruel control over her life, as well as her lack of voice in being sent to live with June, a “stranger.” Through Brooke’s reminiscence, the narrative also establishes that Alice’s baby brother survives the fire, adding a new element to Alice’s voicelessness and lack of agency: Though she doesn’t yet realize her brother is alive, Alice never has the opportunity to weigh in about the decision regarding her brother’s guardianship. June plays a role in this suppression by keeping Alice’s brother a secret—the first in a long line of hidden information that illustrates The Impact of Secrets. This loss of Alice’s physical and metaphorical voice lasts for years, until Alice finally overcomes her traumas and learns to value herself as much as others.
