Unveiling Hidden Worlds: How Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ The Flower Bearers Transforms Grief Into Art
The Flower Bearers opens the night before Griffiths’ wedding to Rushdie. The reader is made to feel like a fly on the wall of a celebrity event. But not everything is as peaceful as the bride’s calla lily bouquet. Griffiths worries about a guest who has not yet arrived and asks her sister to look into it. This scenario creates a sense of impending doom that propels the story forward.
Griffiths’ childhood, college years, her close friendship with fellow-poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, and budding relationship with Rushdie is skillfully woven into the middle section of the memoir providing the reader a sense of the narrator’s strengths and vulnerabilities. For example, the narrator tells us she has a tendency to overthink, speculate and create narratives in her head when she is anxious or overwhelmed. These revelations briefly trick the reader into thinking there’s nothing to worry about.
