60 pages • 2-hour read
The Flower Sisters
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Prologue-Chapter 10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child death, death by suicide, racism, graphic violence, sexual violence, and physical abuse.
On August 13, 1928, a young woman with her hair freshly cut into a bob attends a dance at the urging of her twin sister. Her sister also gives her a heart-shaped gold locket with a diamond chip embedded in it. Two other young women, Fern Watson and Ginger Morton, address the young woman as “Violet” and join her for a cigarette break in between the dances. Violet’s date is Paul “Dash” Emmonds, the preacher’s son; he seeks her out even as he privately contemplates how he will eventually break up with her. As Dash and Violet dance together, an explosion tears the dance hall apart. The blast throws Violet into the air. Her arm is impaled by a piece of wood, and she is eventually burnt alive. Dash manages to survive with just an injured ankle. As one of the dance attendees, Jimmy Jeffers, pulls him to safety, numerous others die.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Daisy”
In May 1878, 15-year-old Daisy Flowers is dropped off in Possum Flats, Missouri, to live with her grandmother, Rose Flowers, over the summer. Daisy’s mother, Violet “Lettie,” has a new boyfriend named Ron, and the couple is setting up house in California. Lettie has promised to collect Daisy once the house and Ron are both ready for her. Daisy dislikes living with Rose, whom she barely knows and who owns and runs a funeral home.
Later, Rose receives the body of Bartholomew “The Mayor” Watson, the former mayor of Possum Flats. Daisy learns from Rose that the Mayor died mid-copulation, but he was not with his wife; Roger, Rose’s right-hand man, got a discreet call to pick up the Mayor’s body at the local pharmacy in the middle of the night. However, Rose warns Roger and Daisy not to disclose this information to anyone else.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Rose”
Rose begins to fix the Mayor’s body. With Roger’s help, she tapes down his telltale erection using duct tape. She believes that the Mayor’s wife stayed with him despite his numerous affairs because she didn’t know about them, and she wonders how someone could spend their whole life with someone and not know their secrets. Rose remembers how she and her twin, Violet, knew everything about each other. Though different in personality, they were physically indistinguishable from each other, save for “the miniscule bluish-purple birthmark at the top of [Violet’s] slender neck” (28). As Rose wraps up her work, she resolves to take Daisy with her when she visits The Picayune, the local newspaper, to give them the service info about the Mayor’s death.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Daisy”
At the offices of The Picayune, Rose introduces Daisy to Myra, the society page editor. Daisy’s eye is caught by a series of photographs along the back wall of the newsroom, which depict tragedies. Fence McMillan, the editor and publisher of the paper and the man who took those pictures, introduces himself to Daisy. Having moved around constantly and without control for all 15 years of her life, Daisy is now desperate to do something meaningful, so she asks Fence for a summer internship. She exaggeratedly claims that she has tons of experience and promises him a salacious tidbit about one of the town’s citizens in return for the internship. While Fence does not deem the circumstances surrounding the Mayor’s death to be newsworthy, he is impressed with Daisy’s gumption and tells her to report for work on Monday morning.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Dash”
Dash muses that it is a perfect day for a funeral. He has been a preacher in Possum Flats for the past 50 years, although he did not initially intend to be a preacher at all. He no longer goes by “Dash”; his congregation now addresses him as either “Pastor Emmonds” or “Brother.”
Dash’s grandson, Joe, stops by with food sent over from Dash’s younger daughter, Marilyn. Joe was adopted by Marilyn 15 years ago. Now, Joe assures his grandfather that everything is in order for the Mayor’s funeral.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Rose”
Rose and Roger deliver the Mayor’s body to the Assemblies of God church just as Joe arrives with food for Dash. They set up the casket so that Ruby Rae Watson, the Mayor’s widow, can pay her respects in private before the rest of the congregation arrives. Dash appears and icily greets Rose, and the two accompany Ruby Rae to the casket once she arrives. All three of them are shocked to see that the Mayor’s corpse once again looks like it has an erection. However, Rose discovers that this is due to a paper hand fan that someone has inserted into the Mayor’s pocket; it carries the words “Courtesy of Morton’s Pharmacy” (55).
The funeral service carries on without complication, although Rose finds herself marveling at the fact that Dash, once an “unrepentant scoundrel” who carried on affairs with multiple women in his youth, now sermonizes in church. As the funeral comes to a close, Rose resolves to talk to Daisy, as she is sure that her granddaughter is the one who leaked the news of the Mayor’s last dalliance.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Daisy”
Daisy wakes up excited to begin her first day at The Picayune. She remembers Rose’s fury at Daisy for trading the news about the Mayor to get the job. However, after Daisy admitted to telling Fence and apologized for her indiscretion, Rose calmed down. She warned Daisy not to spill secrets around town, then dissolved into laughter and told Daisy about the hand fan; both of them wondered who the real culprit was.
In a letter to Lettie that is dated June 5, 1978, Daisy tells her mother about the internship and asks if Lettie has set up a place yet.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Hazel”
Hazel Hodges née Samson, who works at the post office, spots Daisy coming. She feels uncomfortable, as she has not told Daisy that all of her letters to Lettie have come back marked “RETURN TO SENDER—NOT AT THIS ADDRESS” (67). However, she cannot bring herself to break the news to Daisy just yet, so she gives the girl more stamps for her newest letter to Lettie.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Daisy”
Myra introduces Daisy to the rest of the people who work at The Picayune, including Patty (a girl around Daisy’s age who works as the receptionist) and Smiley (the resident photographer). To Daisy’s disappointment, Fence tasks Myra with teaching Daisy how to write obituaries. However, Daisy is determined to persevere, so she begins working on her first one.
Smiley chats with Daisy over lunch and shows her the dark room where he develops all of his photographs; Daisy is instantly captivated. She is also surprised to learn that people in Possum Flats often ask for The Picayune to take photographs of their strangely shaped flowers and produce; this comprises a great deal of Smiley’s work for the newspaper.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Rose”
After Daisy leaves for the newspaper, Rose muses on the life that her grandchild has had because Daisy is Lettie’s daughter. Lettie left home as early as she could, and the next time Rose heard from her was when she called, crying, to announce that she was pregnant and unmarried. It had been years since the two had spoken; Lettie was 35 years old by then, and she only wanted money and refused to come home despite Rose’s plea. After that phone call, the next time Rose heard from Lettie was when she dropped Daisy off at her place earlier this summer.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Dash”
Dash addresses the incident with the Mayor’s body with Rose. Rose explains that she discovered the Mayor’s indiscretion when she was called to the pharmacy by Ginger Morton, the woman with whom the Mayor had been having an affair. She explains that Daisy let the news slip at The Picayune, and Rose believes that Joe, who works as a newspaper boy, must have heard it from there and slipped the hand fan into the Mayor’s pocket. Before she leaves, she asks Dash not to punish Joe too harshly.
Prologue-Chapter 10 Analysis
Based on the true story of the Bond Dance Hall Explosion, The Flower Sisters explores an incident that impacts an entire town, humanizing the tragedy by creating a fictional yet plausible version of the townspeople’s lived experiences in the moments before the tragedy and the years afterward. To set the scene and indirectly connect the novel to the real-life tragedy that inspired its creation, Anderson uses the prologue to dramatize the event that will fuel the plot of the book, albeit 50 years after its occurrence: the dance hall explosion in Possum Flats, Missouri. Although this incident is not yet mentioned in the 1978 timeline, its appearance at the beginning of the book highlights its significance, and Anderson crafts her introduction of the town in 1978 in such a way that older versions of key characters can immediately be identified. This aspect of the storytelling obliquely introduces The Enduring Impact of Past Tragedies on entire communities.
Equally significant is the narrative style, which alternates between different characters’ first-person perspectives from chapter to chapter. This approach indicates that the explosion is a collective experience that belongs to the town as a whole. By showing that the echoes of this tragedy reverberate through the generations, Anderson creates a holistic picture of the townspeople in Possum Flats, acknowledging the many ways in which their lives have been affected by the aftermath of the explosion. This exploration elevates the event to more than just a piece of news; within the world of the novel, this patchwork narrative comes to life as an intimate portrayal of individual personal histories.
As suggested by the title, the Flowers women occupy the center of the narrative. While multiple characters are featured throughout the story, the prologue largely features the Flowers sisters, and even the 50-year timeline keeps the narrative within the family, focusing on Daisy when she arrives in town half a century and two generations later. With this strategic framework, Anderson indicates that Daisy’s present-day experiences will become the catalyst that compels the entire town to address the lingering secrets left by the aftermath of the explosion.
From the first moments of Daisy’s arrival in Possum Flats, it is clear that she is no stranger to change and turbulence, having moved around all her life, and her desperate desire to regain control over her life and create something meaningful reflects the novel’s thematic focus on Loneliness and the Struggle to Connect. This inner need drives Daisy to seek out an internship at The Picayune to make up for the absence of constancy or connection in her tumultuous upbringing. Inherent in this drive is the ghost of generational trauma and The Enduring Impact of Past Tragedies, for although she does not yet realize it, her life has been indirectly affected by the 50-year-old explosion that changed the lives of Rose and Violet forever. Thus, in many ways, Daisy’s imminent foray into the world of investigative journalism will become a quest to discover the mysteries of her family history.
Although these chapters merely introduce The Picayune, the newspaper will become an important motif and plot device throughout the novel. In addition to offering Daisy an avenue for exploring her family’s identity and her own capabilities, it also introduces her to the town’s history by making her aware of the explosion and the details surrounding the event. The newspaper also highlights the enduring impact of past tragedies. Hints of this are already seen in Rose’s occasional reflections on the past, particularly when she reflects on her sister’s premature death, but the newspaper provides the most tangible evidence that the town’s past tragedies have not been forgotten. Serving as a stolid repository of memory, The Picayune provides Daisy with the practical means of pursuing her interest in journalism and making a lasting contribution to the town’s complex social tapestry.
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