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Flower Children
A full-length work inspired by the multiple award-winning short story follows the experiences of four siblings as they grow up in rural Pennsylvania under the guidance of devoutly hippie parents who believe in life without limits, a situation that involves innocence-compromising freedoms.
211 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2007
29 people are currently reading
476 people want to read
About the author
Maxine Swann
10 books19 followersMaxine Swann (born February 11, 1969) is an American fiction author.
Swann grew up on a farm in southern Pennsylvania, before attending Phillips Academy and then Columbia College, where she studied under Mary Gordon.
She pursued her graduate studies at the Sorbonne, Université de Paris VII, earning her master's degree in 1997 with a thesis on the style of Marcel Proust. She now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
She has won the O. Henry Award and the Pushcart Prize.
She is a Founding Editor of the bilingual literary magazine "The Buenos Aires Review."
She has taught creative writing at Barnard College and also works as a private writing coach.
Swann grew up on a farm in southern Pennsylvania, before attending Phillips Academy and then Columbia College, where she studied under Mary Gordon.
She pursued her graduate studies at the Sorbonne, Université de Paris VII, earning her master's degree in 1997 with a thesis on the style of Marcel Proust. She now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
She has won the O. Henry Award and the Pushcart Prize.
She is a Founding Editor of the bilingual literary magazine "The Buenos Aires Review."
She has taught creative writing at Barnard College and also works as a private writing coach.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 211 reviews
October 4, 2007
Here’s a pet peeve I have about books: when bland, sparse writing is misinterpreted by reviewers as “lucid and touching” or “stunning and wistful.” I think simple, bare-bones writing can be absolutely beautiful and moving - let’s think about Annie Dillard or Ernest Hemingway - but I also think that minimalism is an easy trick some writers use to make us think that they’ve put a lot of work into something. Sure, Annie Dillard tends to write thin, spare books, but she puts love into each and every sentence and you can feel that. There’s a lot of work hidden backstage. It kills me to read it, every word is so carefully and well chosen.
It also killed my to read Flower Children by Maxine Swann, but in the bad way. The novel - which is a series of connected short stories about four children growing up with hippie parents - has the appearance of being one of those sparsely beautiful books that read like long poems (which is why I checked it out of the library). It is small and short with big print and lots of white space. But. The writing just isn’t there. Here’s an excerpt, describing the school one of the girls attended:
“Our school was a low brick building with a flag out front and a playground behind. In the halls there was a yellowish light. From the classroom, you could look out and see the cars in the parking lot or a wavering patch of grass… The dining hall was furnished with linoleum tables with similar benches attached. We had hot meals on trays with depressed surfaces in them, each to hold a portion of something. The women who worked in the dining hall wore nets over their hair.”
Yes, the language and sentence structures are simple and clean. But it isn’t saying anything interesting. In fact, it’s about the most bland, generic description of a school I can think of. It doesn’t read like “touching prose,” it reads like she wrote the first thing she thought of. Now imagine two hundred pages of that. None of it made me feel anything - the book failed the gut-check.
It also killed my to read Flower Children by Maxine Swann, but in the bad way. The novel - which is a series of connected short stories about four children growing up with hippie parents - has the appearance of being one of those sparsely beautiful books that read like long poems (which is why I checked it out of the library). It is small and short with big print and lots of white space. But. The writing just isn’t there. Here’s an excerpt, describing the school one of the girls attended:
“Our school was a low brick building with a flag out front and a playground behind. In the halls there was a yellowish light. From the classroom, you could look out and see the cars in the parking lot or a wavering patch of grass… The dining hall was furnished with linoleum tables with similar benches attached. We had hot meals on trays with depressed surfaces in them, each to hold a portion of something. The women who worked in the dining hall wore nets over their hair.”
Yes, the language and sentence structures are simple and clean. But it isn’t saying anything interesting. In fact, it’s about the most bland, generic description of a school I can think of. It doesn’t read like “touching prose,” it reads like she wrote the first thing she thought of. Now imagine two hundred pages of that. None of it made me feel anything - the book failed the gut-check.
February 22, 2008
I was looking so forward to reading this book but it was a major letdown. I wanted to feel the hippie spirit when I read this book and really escape to a this simple time where free love and open thinking ruled a family. Instead, I was met with a rather boring tale of a sister relating snippets of her childhood that didn't seem too far from normal. There was little hippie behavior actually described in the story. The Dad farts in the car and that is supposed to represent the life of a bohemian? Wow! Real crazy! It only took me a day to read so at least I didn't invest too much time on it. I felt like the story never really began. It was like the whole book was just a synopsis.
November 7, 2007
I highly recommend Maxine Swann's Flower Children. It's a very quick read - less a novel than interlocking short stories about children raised by hippie parents. The narrative voice ranges from chapter to chapter - from the plural (we) to a third person narrator to the voice of one of the daughters, and though this kind of transition usually bugs me, it works here.
The book follows the children through adolescence - each chapter lights on an event or a significant moment. Swann has an elegant spare style that works beautifully in the first and concluding chapters that focus on the children and the landscape surrounding their home, but as she expands her vision to include other family members in the story, she is less sucessful at capturing that sense of the significant moment or important transition. Still, her failures are noble ones. I really admired the way she captured the way images of our younger selves erupt through the gaps of our memories like mountains in a mist.
What I liked best is there is no sense of passing judgement on any character - a lesser sensibility would have made a 'look how my hippie parents neglected me and fucked me up' kind of book. The character of the father, esp, who really is a mess and declines as the story progresses, is drawn humourously and sympathetically.
The book follows the children through adolescence - each chapter lights on an event or a significant moment. Swann has an elegant spare style that works beautifully in the first and concluding chapters that focus on the children and the landscape surrounding their home, but as she expands her vision to include other family members in the story, she is less sucessful at capturing that sense of the significant moment or important transition. Still, her failures are noble ones. I really admired the way she captured the way images of our younger selves erupt through the gaps of our memories like mountains in a mist.
What I liked best is there is no sense of passing judgement on any character - a lesser sensibility would have made a 'look how my hippie parents neglected me and fucked me up' kind of book. The character of the father, esp, who really is a mess and declines as the story progresses, is drawn humourously and sympathetically.
August 11, 2017
I was expecting something different from this novel. It's really more a collection of short stories about a group of siblings who have a bit of freedom to explore and live in a rural area, but that's true of many children who wouldn't be called flower children. Apparently the first chapter or story was published on its own. If the rest of the book had been more like that chapter (and the last, both of which I liked the most), I probably would have given this book 4 or 5 stars. It was good, for what it was.
It is a middle of the road book that'd give a report card grade of a solid B. It wasn't great, but it was a nice short, casual read. The ending (or last chapter/story) was quite good and it's often how I feel about the book when finishing that really sets the tone for how I end up feeling about it over all. So, I was left with a dreamy sort of feeling that made me think of my own childhood, which was quite different than that of the children in the book, though I too was given a bit of freedom to roam.
It is a middle of the road book that'd give a report card grade of a solid B. It wasn't great, but it was a nice short, casual read. The ending (or last chapter/story) was quite good and it's often how I feel about the book when finishing that really sets the tone for how I end up feeling about it over all. So, I was left with a dreamy sort of feeling that made me think of my own childhood, which was quite different than that of the children in the book, though I too was given a bit of freedom to roam.
October 27, 2021
Flower Children is lyrical, funny and, to me, above all, moving in the way that poetry can be moving. It is a coming-of-age story about children raised by hippie parents, a myth-like tale about an upbringing close to nature and far from the usual social mores, an exploration of memory and the weird feeling of knowing we're alive. Everything is brought together by a distinctive voice that shifts between the third and the first person.
June 4, 2014
I was intrigued by the cover of this book. I grew up during the same era, and the picture of the children playing (in 70's attire) took me back to my childhood. This is a fictionalized account of Swann's childhood growing up with two Harvard-educated hippies as parents. She and her siblings had no discipline, no rules. Their parents grew pot underneath the kitchen sink. A swing hung from the ceiling.
The story follows the four children from early childhood through the middle school years as they begin to come of age. Their parents divorce, subsequent lovers, and visits to their wealthy (and very different) grandparents' homes all add to the children's view of the world and their view of their parents as well.
I enjoyed this book. However, the switching back and forth between first and third person points of view was distracting. I'd love to know what became of the children and their parents in later years. (You know it's a good story when you are left wondering what happened later.)
The story follows the four children from early childhood through the middle school years as they begin to come of age. Their parents divorce, subsequent lovers, and visits to their wealthy (and very different) grandparents' homes all add to the children's view of the world and their view of their parents as well.
I enjoyed this book. However, the switching back and forth between first and third person points of view was distracting. I'd love to know what became of the children and their parents in later years. (You know it's a good story when you are left wondering what happened later.)
December 22, 2014
Coming of age of four children from a "hippie" family, In this case, I think "hippie" is code for "dysfunctional." Not particularly compelling, except for a beautiful final chapter about the process of growing up, universally experienced.
November 12, 2019
I don't know, I found this book to be endearing and wistful. An excellent protrayal of viewing the adult world through a child's eye and the bittersweet emotions associated with growing up and seeing said adults in a new light with new understanding.
August 29, 2024
Gorgeous in the way O’Neills work is to me. The final chapter was my favourite.
June 7, 2015
I found this odd little book while wandering the fiction stacks. Written very simply and often in 1st person plural POV, it's a novel based on the author's childhood. So, it's basically a memoir, but I'm assuming she took some poetic license with events and changed all the names. For instance, some of the chapters are written in 1st person singular from the perspective of "Maeve," which I'm assuming is a substitution for Maxine.
In the beginning, the children live a carefree life with their blueblood-turned-hippie parents, but as they get older, they begin to realize that their parents are odd and try to fit in as they start school. Then their father moves to "the city" and their parents eventually divorce and eclectic boyfriends and girlfriends parade through their lives. Their father is a little unhinged, their mother is a bit spacey, and you can't help but feel sorry for these kids who are basically left to figure everything out on their own. It's all a little monotonous, though, and the chapters feel like each was written separately, because there are overlaps and jumps that don't always make sense. (In one chapter, the children scare off their father's girlfriend, then in the next chapter she's back without any explanation. And she's referred to later as if she hadn't already been a prominent character.)
My favorite chapters were in the middle of the book when the children visit their grandparents on both sides of the family. Those two chapters have a very Wes Anderson vibe -- from their paternal grandparents who live in a kind of eccentric squalor with various random people all living in the estate, but none really making money -- to their maternal grandmother who still observes cocktail hour and hopes that someday her daughter will marry a more suitable (read: rich & conventional) man.
Overall: a quirky, quick read, suitable for summer reading.
In the beginning, the children live a carefree life with their blueblood-turned-hippie parents, but as they get older, they begin to realize that their parents are odd and try to fit in as they start school. Then their father moves to "the city" and their parents eventually divorce and eclectic boyfriends and girlfriends parade through their lives. Their father is a little unhinged, their mother is a bit spacey, and you can't help but feel sorry for these kids who are basically left to figure everything out on their own. It's all a little monotonous, though, and the chapters feel like each was written separately, because there are overlaps and jumps that don't always make sense. (In one chapter, the children scare off their father's girlfriend, then in the next chapter she's back without any explanation. And she's referred to later as if she hadn't already been a prominent character.)
My favorite chapters were in the middle of the book when the children visit their grandparents on both sides of the family. Those two chapters have a very Wes Anderson vibe -- from their paternal grandparents who live in a kind of eccentric squalor with various random people all living in the estate, but none really making money -- to their maternal grandmother who still observes cocktail hour and hopes that someday her daughter will marry a more suitable (read: rich & conventional) man.
Overall: a quirky, quick read, suitable for summer reading.
August 23, 2011
I've just gotten 5 big boxes of books from the old house and it's thrilling to discover so many of the ones I loved reading then--but Flower Children just isn't one of them. I remember I received it as a pre pub from friends in publishing, and I'd tried to feel the writing without impact from the hype around it, but it was near impossible. Maxine Swann is actually a pretty good writer and her other book, Serious Girls, struck me as better than this one, but overall the problem here is that to me she's not a) as good a writer as she believes herself and is hyped up to be and b) maybe because the expectation is higher than the talent, a lot of the writing goes flat. The idea behind the writing--kids brought up by narcissistic, blind hippie parents--is actually far more interesting that anything OF interest that her writing has to say on the subject, and that's where the entire enterprise seems doomed.
I always had--and still have--the feeling that reviewers find Swann's background and life story (plus the fact that she's pretty and photographs well) so fascinating that they either overlook a sort of basic mediocrity or simply take less for more from it. On her mother's side, Maxine Swann comes from a certain kind of 'high' NY family residing like people in an Edith Whartom novel (they probably did, way back then, anyway) but her mother, typically baby boomer, rebelled and ran off to be a hippie, with enough obsession to continue hippiedom even after it's sell-by date. This is the context fot Swann's childhood, later on even more individualized by fancy prep schools and fancy ivy league colleges, plus years in Paris, married to an Argentine and now even an expat in Buenos Aires. It all makes for wonderful copy--how disappointing, then, that at times this is all it is, really: smart copy.
I always had--and still have--the feeling that reviewers find Swann's background and life story (plus the fact that she's pretty and photographs well) so fascinating that they either overlook a sort of basic mediocrity or simply take less for more from it. On her mother's side, Maxine Swann comes from a certain kind of 'high' NY family residing like people in an Edith Whartom novel (they probably did, way back then, anyway) but her mother, typically baby boomer, rebelled and ran off to be a hippie, with enough obsession to continue hippiedom even after it's sell-by date. This is the context fot Swann's childhood, later on even more individualized by fancy prep schools and fancy ivy league colleges, plus years in Paris, married to an Argentine and now even an expat in Buenos Aires. It all makes for wonderful copy--how disappointing, then, that at times this is all it is, really: smart copy.
June 27, 2008
I got the creepiest sense of deja vu when reading a particular chapter of this book, before I realized I'd read the section before, in the 2006 edition of Best American Short Stories. This book is little, and I read it over the course of two days, which can be very nice once in a while. It's about a family of four children, two boys and two girls growing up hippie style in the hills of Pennsylvania. I really like Swann's style of prose, which is that of a preternaturally wise child. Her descriptions of physical places are gauzy and dreamlike without being overdone or boring. She also nails the high points and pitfalls of children growing up in a radical free-love post sixties family.
Read
January 21, 2008Thanks to Betsy and Heather, I picked this book for my Book Club. Overall consensus was that it was enjoyable, but should have been a short story. I thought it was well written and provided an entertaining glimpse into the strange lives of the hippy culture. The last chapter, when Maeve and her siblings returned to their childhood home as adults, was so beautifully written and poignant. I was only sorry I wasn't reading it in the privacy of my own home; lots of tears amongst strangers in the waiting room of my daughter's ballet studio...
July 30, 2009
I really enjoyed the descriptive writing. I was disappointed by the plot which never really went anywhere. It starts out with a wonderful description of little hippie children running around in a natural setting with no rules. As they grew up, the plot never really took them through any transformations. A fast enjoyable read none-the-less.
June 14, 2008
HATED IT! poorly written, just a bad book all around. Can't believe it got so many good reviews unless the author was giving out bj's under the table! LOL. AVOID AT ALL COST!
July 21, 2008
A lovely, quick-reading, book!
August 14, 2017
Flower Children goes on the shelf next to Nancy Peacock's Life Without Water. I loved this book. It's the kind of story that doesn't follow any formula, just as life doesn't.
February 20, 2021
I like to find book when I’m thrifting because, well I won’t pass up a book for $1! I found this one and got really excited when I read the back of the book to see what it was about! I read “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls a few years ago and absolutely loved it! I bought this book thinking I would love it just as much. I was in for a huge disappointment sadly. This book was quite boring and only gave small little snippets of her life growing up with “hippie parents” who didn’t give off too much hippie behaviors. Yes there were some things they did that presented them to be “hippies” but I was so ready to be blown away by there way of live... I really wasn’t. I know this was written all true about her life, which I feel bad for, but I was just expecting something totally different I guess. I will say, I’m glad this book was short! I didn’t waste too much time reading it and honestly the author was great with her descriptive writing! Other then that... wasn’t something I was dying to get home and read. Wouldn’t recommend:(
February 28, 2025
‘Flower Children’ is for those who are longing for the summers of childhood spent playing dirty and rough in the outdoors. This book encapsulates the essence of being a child so perfectly that the ending was almost bittersweet for me, knowing that you’ll never be that child again. There’s a quote: “Would it be possible to begin all over again? Start again. Relive things.” Don’t we all wonder that at least at some point in our lives? I think everybody will be able to relate to that last story of going back to places from your childhood and seeing them through the eyes of an adult, realizing that perhaps the world wasn’t as big and magical as you thought it was when you were a child. These stories will take you back to being a kid again.
July 28, 2019
Swan's style of writing reminds me of my own - done with broad strokes, heartfelt ideas, words to the touch, and long winded moments. It's entirely mesmerizing to read and experience. It was a slow-paced read at first, but picked up towards the end. It's the timeless tale of childhood and becoming yourself in a world pressured by assimilation, led by '70s nuanced hippie adults and thought-provoking children. I found myself in this book - shocked in an instant by the harsh reality of the world in the second-to-last chapter. This book led me blind with wonder and majesty, shaking me to my core. I will recommend it to anyone with ears.
April 22, 2019
This was a quick easy read, and not quite what I expected. It follows a family with four children through their sort of "free range" upbringing in the 70's and 80's on the east coast somewhere. Seems a little late in the decades to be called Flower Children. More like the parents were the Flower Children. At any rate, it did have that vibe and was fun to read about that kind of life and how the kids eventually grow a bit older and question how they've been raised.
September 7, 2020
This is one of the saddest and most disgusting books I have ever read. To be honest, I didn't finish it but I continued as long as I could, which was far longer than I wanted.
It is not the book I thought I was going to read. I thought it was going to be a book about a loving, free spirited family - not a book where the children were used and abused. I don't doubt this author's talent but this was not the book for me.
It is not the book I thought I was going to read. I thought it was going to be a book about a loving, free spirited family - not a book where the children were used and abused. I don't doubt this author's talent but this was not the book for me.
February 11, 2019
I loved all of the stories. Some of them are so cute and bittersweet, others are heartbreaking and it’s produces such a mix of emotions. I found it so easy to connect with most of the main 4 children but there were a few spots I was confused by all of the characters. Overall this was such a wonderful and bittersweet novel, it will be remaining on my shelf for a very long time!
May 4, 2017
2.5 stars This was a hard one for me because I so wanted to like it. However, it seemed like a short story that had just been lengthened to sell as a novel. The writing was lyrical but the story didn't go anywhere. It felt sparse just for the sake of being artsy.
June 6, 2019
2.5 stars, rounded up
very poorly written. It slips in and out of first and third person which I found confusing. there's plenty of language in it I didn't care for and I didn't like the ending. It won't be a keeper
very poorly written. It slips in and out of first and third person which I found confusing. there's plenty of language in it I didn't care for and I didn't like the ending. It won't be a keeper
June 10, 2024
Overall it was a good book for what it was, a short read about some childhood memories as they grow into teenagers. It had its moments when it felt like it went off the rails a bit, but I enjoyed it overall.
July 26, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. I found it pretty and contemplative and engaging.
October 26, 2017
I was expecting something similar to The Glass Castle or The Astor Orphan; but I was disappointed. The writing was disjointed, and the story never really drew me in.
March 20, 2020
Very weird story
May 8, 2022
Nostalgic. Beautiful imagery. Funny. ❤️
Displaying 1 - 30 of 211 reviews