Trigger warning mentions of drug use/addiction.
Like many things in the 60s, opinions were divided about drugs. On one hand, promising research began about the uses of LSD in mental health care. On the other, fearmongering about the dangers of “gateway drugs” and any small use of drugs being life-ruining ruled the day. The book “Go Ask Alice” entered the conversation as a powerful weapon on the latter side. Presented as a real diary that just happened to be found by the anonymous editor, “Go Ask Alice” begins with a bubbly, promising 15 year old girl who has never had a care in her life…which is promptly ruined as soon as she tries LSD for the first time. She quickly finds herself trying other drugs, losing friends, losing her virginity, and running away. She resorts to sex work to buy drugs. When she returns home in desperation, she is sent to an institution where she has horrifying hallucinations. Eventually, she decides to get sober…but then per the diary, she dies of an overdose (whether intentional or not is left to the imagination) shortly after her last entry.
The book exploded. More than three million copies were sold within years of publication. Glowing reviews demanded that this book be stocked in every school library and become required reading by both parents and children. Per Wiki, “Go Ask Alice has been cited as establishing both the commercial potential of young adult fiction in general, and the genre of young adult anti-drug novels, and has been called ‘one of the most famous anti-drug books ever published.'” A hit TV movie was made.
But for many of us who have read it, including the wonderful Paul F. Tompkins, it was clear the book was a load of baloney:
The book was in fact written by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon housewife who claimed to have been the mental health professional who found it. Sparks was not in fact any kind of professional: she claimed to have several prestigious degrees, but she did not. Sparks was terrible at keeping her stories straight and claimed to have different degrees from different institutions, and claimed to have met the young woman depicted in the book in several contradictory ways. However, because of the less connected nature of the press at the time, and because of the lack of due diligence done by those who published her book or interviewed her, she was never fully exposed for this lie.
Sparks would later go in to write several other fake young adult diaries on various issues including HIV and pregnancy. One such novel contributed significantly to another damaging example of cultural hysteria: the Satanic Panic. Jay’s Journal told the “true” story of a young man’s descent into witchcraft, eventually leading to his death. I will leave the absolutely monstrous story of how Sparks got her grubby little paws on this story to the amazing book Unmask Alice, my source for most of the information in this post. Emerson tells that particularly enraging story better than I ever could.
“Go Ask Alice” remains in publication, still listed in most areas as a “true story”.