Saturday, April 8, 2017

Black Books and Cheap Thrills from Simon's Pulse

Go Ask Alice by Anonymouse,Paperback, Simon Pulse
Jay’s Journal by Anonymous, Simon Pulse
Letting Ana Go Jun 4, 2013 by Anonymous Paperback, Simon Pulse
Calling Maggie May Paperback –by Anonymous , Simon Pulse
Lucy in the Sky by Anonymous, Simon Pulse

Go Ask Alice has been haunting YA literature for 46 years. Released in 1971 with the understanding that it was “the actual diary of a 15-year-old drug user,” it scandalized and thrilled readers, much like other books offering garish slices of disturbing reality, including Flora Rheta Schreiber’s Sybil (1973), Jay Anson’s The Amityville Horror (1977), and, well, Adolf Hitler’s The Hitler Diaries (1983).

Notice the two trends? First, they all occupy the realm of salacious horror, albeit of a semifeasible bent. Second, they have all been thoroughly debunked. But that’s one of the lasting powers of the printed page. For better or worse, books still inspire the public’s credulity—surely no one would publish it if it’s no better than online “fake news.” Ask around. Did Sybil’s case really happen? Is the jury still out on that creepy house in Amityville? People you know will say yes.


Five million copies later, there should be no debate left for Go Ask Alice. The “editor,” Beatrice Sparks, wrote it, and when she was done, she “edited” a second diary, Jay’s Journal (1979). So enduringly popular are these books that Simon Pulse has continued to put out other darkly enjoyable, anonymously authored cautionary tales “in the tradition of Go Ask Alice,” including Lucy in the Sky (drugs), Letting Ana Go (anorexia) and Calling Maggie May (sex trafficking).

What this indicates is that the mystique of Go Ask Alice lingers. But if you separate it from its backstory, is it still an effective book? Especially today, when any level of sex or violence is a click away?

The short answer: yes. A diary format can be a crutch—it’s a convenient excuse for lazy prose—but Sparks knows how to do “bad” writing well. Her unnamed narrator cycles through mundane entries about what she had for dinner, concerns about her weight, and complaints about school, along with the stuff we paid for: her slide into drugs. And it’s not a slow slide, either.

Let’s dog-ear the pages, as no doubt thousands of teens have done. Page 31: LSD. Page 36: speed. Page 41: sex on acid. Page 48: sleeping pills. Page 55: Benzedrine and Dexedrine. Page 56: pot. Page 77: heroin. Page 78: rape. Page 112: prostitution. Yes, it’s fast, and yes, it’s alarmist, but because of the fluttering, flighty diary format, it works. You turn each page with a grimace, wondering what the hell is going to happen next.

Sparks knows how to leave details out to great effect, and trusts readers to divine the fear, guilt, and loneliness from between the lines. The book is actually two diaries: after returning home from a homeless period , the “diarist” cleans up, and the second diary details her former friends taking revenge upon her as well as her final stumble back into the abyss.

The final page to dog-ear is 214, Sparks’ coup de grâce: “The subject of this book died three weeks after her decision not to keep another diary.” One could be excused for calling it a cheap shot—you could conclude any book with “and then she died!” to startling effect—but it’s a powerful shot nonetheless, coming without warning or explanation. Sparks simply slams the casket lid.

One can only wonder what Sparks was thinking with her follow-up “discovery,” Jay’s Journal. In almost all measurable ways, it is a better novel, with our clandestine author showing great leaps in her ability to establish backstory, create believable characters, and orchestrate a plot. These exact elements, of course, make it fail as a diary.

And then there’s the plot. Jay’s problem, in a word, is Satanism. With its publishing date of 1979, this barely predates Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder’s Michelle Remembers (1980), the debunked (naturally) bombshell that helped set off the 1980s Satanic Panic and irritated Dungeons & Dragons players everywhere.

In Sparks’ well-oiled tale, Jay, a gregarious, insightful teenager, finds himself drawn into a coven of witches—everyone he meets is seemingly involved in the occult—and actually learns to levitate objects, curse high-school debate opponents, and more. The farcicality isn’t assuaged by Sparks’ three-page explanation about how she came upon the diary, which, she warns us up front this time, concludes with Jay’s suicide.

But is Jay’s Journal a good read? It sure is. Whether you come to these books for straight talk, ironic enjoyment, or cheap thrills (hey, some of the best thrills are cheap), Alice and Jay, and their numerous literary offspring, are waiting for you, gazing ominously, but oh so tan

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