April 2010 Bok Discussion: Go Ask Alice

[Star_Anise]

Winner of our contested books nominations, it took us a little while to get there, but we made it:)

[margaine]

I started (re)reading Go Ask Alice today. As I've mentioned, I originally read this book in 7th grade or so (age 12?). I was surprised to realize that I didn't remember the beginning of the book at all - I only remembered the narrator getting into drugs. So I was interested by the normal teenage stuff that it starts out with. Oh, I'm so glad I'm done being a teenager! How difficult!

I read in Wikipedia about the origin of the book and the supposed author. It says:


Although it is still published under the byline "Anonymous," press interviews and copyright records suggest that it is largely or wholly the work of its purported editor, Beatrice Sparks. Some of the days and dates referenced in the book put the timeline from 1968 until 1970.

And elsewhere, it says that Sparks was a youth counselor and she composited the story based on things that several of her patients had told her.

[margaine]

Well, I've finished reading the book. I felt obligated to read it since I'd nominated a book myself this month. I read it very quickly, since it it short and written very simply. I didn't remember much of what I'd read before. Some thoughts.

- it is so absurd that a book whose main purpose is clearly to warn against drugs is considered "dangerous" for it's portrayal of drug use. But I guess that is how things go.
- this book did that funny statistics thing, where data about kids and drugs are obviously displayed. "I found out that . . ."
- to me the most shocking thing in the book is the -unprotected- sex. It is another era and condoms are never mentioned once. Pre-AIDS, free love, and all that. It is just amazing to me how different things are now. The narrator worries about getting pregnant and considers the Pill. But condoms seem completely nonexistant.
- another interesting thing is the way that kids in drug rehab were just placed in a mental institution with very little distinction between mental illness and drug use. There is often and overlap, but it seems that in the era of this book, there was no such thing as just rehab.

- spoilers -






- I wish that the end of the narrator's life was portrayed more fully. Leaving the question open of how she died makes less of a point than knowing how. There is a huge huge difference betw. Suicide and an accidental overdose, and I think it could make a huge difference in how the book and the character is shown. But as it is, it is just like drugs = death and the details don't matter.

As you might guess I am working from the assumption that this is not a real diary or the true story of one single person. I'm sure there is truth to it, but there are still author's/editor's descions at work.

[Jez]

- it is so absurd that a book whose main purpose is clearly to warn against drugs is considered "dangerous" for it's portrayal of drug use. But I guess that is how things go.

I don't think it's so absurd. When I was a teen this book and books like it were used like instruction how-to books in my school. We didn't take them as cautionary tales at all. They were guides on what to do, how to get away with it, and then how to manipulate those in authority to get out of trouble if you did get caught.

I was going to ask those reading the book this month if you think these sorts of books are good or bad for teens. In my experience, they're not good at all and they actually facilitate the growth of existing problems. Sure, she dies in the end, but how many teenagers actually believe they're going to die? Do car crash statistics actually impact most teenagers' likelihood of speeding? I was wondering if anyone has any experiences with books like this having the opposite effect and actually stopping kids from using drugs or engaging in other risky behaviors?


- to me the most shocking thing in the book is the -unprotected- sex. It is another era and condoms are never mentioned once. Pre-AIDS, free love, and all that. It is just amazing to me how different things are now. The narrator worries about getting pregnant and considers the Pill. But condoms seem completely nonexistant.
That is an interesting thing to note. It's weird, too, because it's not like STDs (and the knowledge of them) didn't exist prior to AIDS. I never understood the free love stuff in regard to that.


- another interesting thing is the way that kids in drug rehab were just placed in a mental institution with very little distinction between mental illness and drug use. There is often and overlap, but it seems that in the era of this book, there was no such thing as just rehab.
It's still like that. There are just rehab options now, but a lot of kids with drug problems are still placed in mental institutions with non-drug users. It's terrible, but kids are thrown into institutions for all kinds of reasons, even if they really shouldn't be there. Then, kids who actually should be there are overlooked! Then there's also the issue of insurance coverage or lack of coverage for institutional care in determining whether a person is placed or not placed (often regardless of whether they actually should be placed or not). It's a very messed up system.

[margaine]

I don't think it's so absurd. When I was a teen this book and books like it were used like instruction how-to books in my school. We didn't take them as cautionary tales at all. They were guides on what to do, how to get away with it, and then how to manipulate those in authority to get out of trouble if you did get caught.

I suppose you are right. I think when I read this book in middle school, I did see it as "bad" or "dangerous." But reading it again, I kind of had the impression "is that all?" It just seemed so from-the-establishment to me. But I guess if you want to find things in it, you could. It is just like programs like DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which was very popular when I was in school, I don't know if they are still doing it today). The point is to show that drugs are bad, but it ends up potentially telling kids more than they might have already known about drugs (how they work, what they can do, street names for different drugs, etc). Not to mention instilling that rebellious feeling in kids to do what they are told not to.

Well, I bought all the DARE propaganda when I was a kid, but that's cause I'm weird. For most people, I agree with you Jez - these kinds of books and other things based on warnings/fear don't have the intended effect.

And speaking from the position of someone who totally was taken in by DARE and books like this and convinced that "drugs are bad" - I can say that the presentation is problematic anyway. Because the rhetoric of drugs = death (or at least immediate addiction and destruction of all your life's potential), which is how this book and the DARE program present drugs only indicates one limited side to drug use. I think in order to have an intelligent attitude about drugs and potential abuse, kids should be aware too about how "normalized" drug use can be in society (in Go Ask Alice, this appears in a very minor part, when kids talk about raiding their parents' medicine or alcohol cabinets, but it isn't fully dealt with). It isn't all bad/negative people who use drugs, even if drugs' effect is often negative. But when I was growing up, I really thought that everyone who used any kind of illegal substances would be just like the drug-using characters in Go Ask Alice. And that is really . . . incorrect. Even the neighborhood kids that get the narrator into drugs and appear like good kids on the outside are ultimately portrayed as "bad" because they are manipulative and destructive to the narrator. But not everyone who uses drugs is like that, and I think such unrealistic portrayals are really problematic.

[margaine]

. . . I should add, in explaining how obedient I was as a child . . . things like DARE worked on me because I did what I was told, pretty much no matter what. But I wouldn't have needed to be scared into it for it to work. Just my mom saying "don't do drugs" would have been enough. So I'm really not a good example at all.

Speaking of which! (on the topic of normalization and incorrect perceptions) My mom was a teenager in pretty much the same era as Go Ask Alice was set (she graduated high school in 1970). When I found out that she had used drugs as a teenager, I was horrified because I really thought that only bad people used recreational drugs. And I knew that she had been successful as a teenager too - field hockey, cheerleading, poetry, taking care of her younger brothers - so it just didn't make any sense to me at the time. I think I would have been much better equipped to understand and process drug use if I'd been taught from the beginning the real way that drugs appear in society. It's not all the bad kids or the creepy guy on the corner or whatever.

I suppose Go Ask Alice wants to show that "it could happen to anyone." But the fact that the narrator is initially a good girl from a good household doesn't balance out with the fact that her life is destroyed by drug use. So ultimately the badness associated with drugs pervades any potential for a realistic portrayal of normal existence in society alongside drug use. Does that make sense? If not, I can always clarify later . . .

[Phantom Paragrapher]

Since I choose this book , I read it today and finished it. When I first heard that this was a banned book I was quite suprised . I first read the book when I was 12 but at the age I didnt really fully comprehend the story and last year when I was studying my Library Diploma I had to choose a genre/theme and write about and read 15 books in that area. I chose Edgy Content with the theme of Mental Health/Drugs and on my list was Go Ask Alice. I was amazed at how much controversy their was over the book and still till this day find that the authorship of the book has not fully been described and understood. Its amazing as drug use nowadays is such a popular thing , but I guess for a 15yr old that came from a Middle class family, that back then it was unknown of and though it hasn't been fully described the character by the sounds of it had an eating disorder too , which I guess in the 70's was an edgy topic nobody really talked about. The so-called author Beatrice Sparks has actually written a couple more books one which I also used for my assignment about a girl with an eating disorder called Kim"Empty Inside", which I recommend to all to read and is very touching. But in adding the above , reading it for a 3rd time and 10-11 years on as Im now 22 and with the knowledge I know now , I found I was able to relate more in parts and fully understand and comprehend the story,

[margaine]

Its amazing as drug use nowadays is such a popular thing , but I guess for a 15yr old that came from a Middle class family, that back then it was unknown of and though it hasn't been fully described the character by the sounds of it had an eating disorder too , which I guess in the 70's was an edgy topic nobody really talked about.

I have a feeling that the author/editor wanted to point to some other issues and concerns that teenagers or pre-teens might experience, even though the primary focus of the book is drug abuse. It definitely sounds like the narrator may have or could soon develop an eating disorder. It seemed almost misplaced in the book and soon gets forgotten as drugs become a much larger concern.

Another thing is that there are a few places where the narrator describes being attracted to women and feeling confused about that. I think this is another instance of a conscious concern to address things might worry or confuse young people, or to give them a chance to think "oh, that happened to me too, I guess I'm not the only one." Such attraction to the same sex in someone who would otherwise consider themselves heterosexual is the type of thing that could certainly come up in a young person's journal or diary, but it seems to appear almost out of nowhere.

[Rachel]

In the 1998 New York Times book review on Go Ask Alice, they state that Linda Glovach is 'one of the preparers' of the book and Beatrice whats her name is not cited as author but editor. Also if you look at the copyright it states plainly that it is a complete work of fiction and the characters are not based on anyone. So that pretty well sums it up.
It and many others to follow by the same editor are indeed meant to be cautionary tales.
When I read the book I was flat out terrified of it;, I despise drugs and alcohol use, for me, I don't judge others. But our mother was alcoholic and our lives a nightmare and I remember all my childhood being frightened of the change in behaviour that even a simple glass of wine produced in people. The lowering of the bar of decorum and behaviour, the lewdness and silliness. It was appalling to me. And I remember a friend telling me that once her friend, I did not know her, was angry at her dad for forbidding her to go to some place very questionable with wild child friends and so she and her friends laced his coffee and I think pan cakes with something and he ended up on psyche ward for a couple of weeks. I never forgot my horror at the viciousness of those kids and have always taught my children never to drink from someone else's glass nor take anything from strangers, nor drink from your own glass if you leave it and come back. That was the impact this story had on me. I hated the book, just read it because I was expected to, and never read it again. I hated the whole atmosphere of the age, the lostness, the complete lack of any sort of human dignity portrayed and the damage done to those ingesting these things was horrendous to me. To take something that they really knew nothing about and putting it into their mouths and not knowing what it might do to them was the height of stupidity and foolishness. shiver.

[Winifred]

Feeling guilty because I haven't done my bit with Go Ask Alice this month, yet: but I will! I am illustrating what a tolerant bunch we are: one can post about a month's selection even when the month is only a memory....Nevertheless, it is time for a new month's selection.

[Winifred]

Believe it or not, just received my interlibrary loan copy of Go Ask Alice, it finally came in while I was on vacation!! Let's see if I can get it finished over the weekend, and comment to fulfill my book club agreement!

[margaine]

Believe it or not, just received my interlibrary loan copy of Go Ask Alice, it finally came in while I was on vacation!! Let's see if I can get it finished over the weekend, and comment to fulfill my book club agreement!

Wow, and I always feel like my Interlibrary loans take a long time!

[Winifred]

Wow, and I always feel like my Interlibrary loans take a long time!

Yes, this was my longest one ever - I wonder if the the lack of author's name had anything to do with it?

[Winifred]

Well, I have finished the book, and the Wikipedia entry, and this site: http://www.linagoldberg.com/goaskalice.html . The "diary" did seem a little over the top to me, more like a compendium of several girls' experiences than one life. Things that did ring true: 1) the bullying that ensued when she was clean seemed like the difficulty kids have breaking out of gangs. 2) the power struggles over hair styles, etc.


*warning: spoiler in next paragraph.*
Things that didn't ring true: 1) I thought it odd that everyone else that Anonymous met had the usual baggage from poor family dynamics, etc, but her own family was unfailingly supportive, loving and generally perfect.
2) Also, hard to believe that a drug-crazed young lady would keep pieces of paper, paper bags, etc, together as diary entries...Of course, Victor Frankl managed to do so in a concentration camp.
3) I also thought the ending did not ring true. The young lady had everything going for her, and, although the "editor" didn't specify what killed her, the assertion is that her drug use killed her, one way or another. I agree with margaine's view, that was pretty heavy-handed, considering that she was given LSD initially without her knowledge, and that by the end of the book, she evidently hates drugs. And, as Jez says, when young folks try to use this book as a guidebook, they will find precious little how-to info, which does lead me to think that it's more of an (adult-written) tale of warning.

Overall, I think the book could be a good starting point for discussion, both about drugs and about reliable authorship.

I'm of margaine's mother's generation (gulp), but I definitely bought the dangers of drugs, acid in particular. The idea of flashbacks did not appeal at all, and I didn't want to shake up my (to me) tenuous grasp of reality with chemicals. I feel the same way today about the pharmaceutical industry commercials on TV....But, we all knew people who experimented, and survived to tell many tales (perhaps not as many as in Go Ask Alice, however).

Which makes me ask, how do you see crack and meth in comparison to LSD? Have any of you lost friends to drug use?

[margaine]

I'm of margaine's mother's generation (gulp), but I definitely bought the dangers of drugs, acid in particular.

Yup, you could be my mom :). But that's great, I bet you are an awesome mom! (And my own mom is pretty awesome too).

[Winifred]

Yup, you could be my mom :). But that's great, I bet you are an awesome mom! (And my own mom is pretty awesome too).

Go Ask Gizmo :D