Go Ask Alice: Fake Anti-Drug Novel by Mormon Youth Counselor

[Cleopatra7]

If you were anything like me as a teen or tween (i.e., a chronically uncool and sheltered), then you probably read "Go Ask Alice," the diary of an anonymous teen girl in the 1960s who spiraled into sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and then died shortly after writing the final entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice

However, it's quite clear now that "Alice" never existed, and the entire story was concocted by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon youth counselor, who made a cottage industry of "finding" diaries written by wayward teenagers and publishing them, ostensibly as scared straight tales:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Sparks

As this article details, the kids who were/are most likely to read books like "Go Ask Alice" aren't going to be the ones in the hardcore drug scene, but goodie-goodies wanting a vicarious thrill without any of the real-life dangers (like me):

https://www.bustle.com/articles/29829-go-ask-alice-is-still-awash-in-controversy-43-years-after-publication

Quote

And that "anonymous" diarist we all cried for when she suddenly and tragically died? Oh, she never existed. Therapist and Mormon youth counselor Beatrice Sparks couldn't stay out of the limelight when Go Ask Alice was swarmed with publicity. She started making public appearances as the book's "editor." When her name became public, it wasn't long before people did a little digging and found that Sparks was the sole copyright holder of the book, on which she is listed as the author.

Whoops.

It's taken as common knowledge today that Sparks, who died in 2012, wrote this "diary" as a scary warning to teenagers who want to do drugs and take part in risky behavior. Which, honestly, probably should have been more clear to those reading back then.

And let's take a magnifying glass to the text. For instance, one questionable line item is when the narrator does LSD, speed, and other drugs before wondering what pot is like. I'm no expert, but pot came last? Sparks' descriptions of how the narrator feels doing drugs are fairly embarrassing to read as grown-ups.

...

We were all so easily fooled. But as preteens, this read like more of a wonderful experience than an anti-drug campaign.

When I read the book as a middle schooler, I was positive "Go Ask Alice" was real. Today, I realize that the whole thing reads more like an episode of Dragnet than an authentic account of drug use. As a presumably squeaky-clean Mormon, my assumption is that she got her notions about drugs from places like TIME, Newsweek, Life magazine, and probably also the afore-mentioned Dragnet.  Given how many fake diaries Sparks found time to write, I have to wonder where she found time to do face to face counseling. However, "Go As Alice" has never been out of print in more than forty years, which is not an insignificant feat, maybe I need to get in on the fake scared straight diary scam.

ETA This site lists examples of paragraphs that no real teenage girl could have ever written, and now I feel even stupider than twelve year old me didn't realize how fake "Go Ask Alice is":

http://the-toast.net/2014/04/25/fake-lines-from-go-ask-alice/

[PennySycamore]

I remember Go Ask Alice.  Never read it though.  I figured that it was the same preachy shit that the older generation was always spouting off about drugs.

[December]

13 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

I remember Go Ask Alice.  Never read it though.  I figured that it was the same preachy shit that the older generation was always spouting off about drugs.

That about sums it up, you're not missing much. I read it as a young teen and right off the bat it sounded off to me, but I couldn't tell if it was just because I was reading it decades after the original publication.  I remember hearing afterwards that the book was made up, but never who apparently did it. Interesting not only for the religion connection but also that she was a counselor of all things. 

[dramallama]

3 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

If you were anything like me as a teen or tween (i.e., a chronically uncool and sheltered), then you probably read "Go Ask Alice," the diary of an anonymous teen girl in the 1960s who spiraled into sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and then died shortly after writing the final entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice

However, it's quite clear now that "Alice" never existed, and the entire story was concocted by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon youth counselor, who made a cottage industry of "finding" diaries written by wayward teenagers and publishing them, ostensibly as scared straight tales:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Sparks

As this article details, the kids who were/are most likely to read books like "Go Ask Alice" aren't going to be the ones in the hardcore drug scene, but goodie-goodies wanting a vicarious thrill without any of the real-life dangers (like me):

https://www.bustle.com/articles/29829-go-ask-alice-is-still-awash-in-controversy-43-years-after-publication

When I read the book as a middle schooler, I was positive "Go Ask Alice" was real. Today, I realize that the whole thing reads more like an episode of Dragnet than an authentic account of drug use. As a presumably squeaky-clean Mormon, my assumption is that she got her notions about drugs from places like TIME, Newsweek, Life magazine, and probably also the afore-mentioned Dragnet.  Given how many fake diaries Sparks found time to write, I have to wonder where she found time to do face to face counseling. However, "Go As Alice" has never been out of print in more than forty years, which is not an insignificant feat, maybe I need to get in on the fake scared straight diary scam.

ETA This site lists examples of paragraphs that no real teenage girl could have ever written, and now I feel even stupider than twelve year old me didn't realize how fake "Go Ask Alice is":

http://the-toast.net/2014/04/25/fake-lines-from-go-ask-alice/

I read Go Ask Alice so many times in my middle school years, and I was so convinced it was true.  I, too, was chronically uncool and very naive/sheltered.  I also remember reading another "diary" style book by Beatrice Sparks, I don't remember the title but the girl's name was Nancy and she got HIV when she was date raped.  That one didn't stick with me as much.   I guess I rationalized away the odd writing of "Alice" when reading it in the early 90s by thinking well, this took place in the early 60s, maybe that's how teenagers wrote and thought?  Now, I cringe.

[Antimony]

I read it. Also thought it was true at the time. 

I did a lot of drugs anyway.

Then I stopped after I felt like I'd had my fill of the whole business and I turned out a-okay. 

[GeoBQn]

4 hours ago, dramallama said:

As this article details, the kids who were/are most likely to read books like "Go Ask Alice" aren't going to be the ones in the hardcore drug scene, but goodie-goodies wanting a vicarious thrill without any of the real-life dangers (like me):

Yup.  I was the goody-two shoes reading it for salacious detail when I was between "Clan of the Cave Bear" books.  I remember how I stopped liking the books when I realized that every "anonymous teenager" had the same exact writing style.  "It Happened to Nancy" was the AIDS one.  There was also "Annie's Baby" (teen pregnancy) and "Treacherous Love" (girl has affair with her teacher.)

There was one book, "Jay's Journal," that actually was extremely loosely-based on a real diary.  The published version was about a boy getting involved with satanism.  The boy's family was pissed off with what she did with their loved one's story.  I guess it is easier to just write a story from scratch than deal with the inconvenience of living people.

[elliha]

We have that book on our list of books for some of our English courses. I think it is rather bad but a surprisingly high number of people like it, even people 30-40 years of age. Of course, for some of them it is the first whole English book they have ever read and that in itself is always an achievement.

[JermajestyDuggar]

She was obviously never a drug counselor because if you are, one of the first things you learn real quick is that alcohol and or pot are used before long before other drugs she claimed to use. I'm just going by the description because I never actually read this book. I was a skeptical kid but didn't know much about drugs so I probably would have believed it as a young teen. As an older teen, I'm sure I would've just rolled my eyes at it. Now I'm kind of curious to read it. I bet I'll get a good laugh.

[smittykins]

My 7th grade English class(1978)studied "Jay's Journal."

[Loveday]

Oh, man, it wasn't true? I think I was about twelve when I read Go Ask Alice. I was probably the most naive, innocent kid on the planet at that time--for some reason the social upheaval of the late 60s and early 70s didn't touch me much, I don't know why. I mean, I remember protests and hippies and drugs and the Vietnam war (my dad was in the Navy, so I have strong memories of my mother anxiously watching the nightly news), but I seemed to live in a sort of bubble-gum pop haze of Tiger Beat magazine, top 40 music, and the Osmond Brothers at that time. Makes me cringe a bit now to think about it. LOL.

So how I got hold of Go Ask Alice is beyond me, but I really thought it was a true story. I remember being shocked and yet strangely fascinated by it, and then I put it on the shelf and out of my mind. Now I have to find out if I still have my old copy, I'm dying to read it again. 

 

[FeministShrew]

Anyone else remember the movie? I saw the movie on late night TV as a young teen before I ever read the book (given to me by an aunt who was an avid reader of "testimony porn" like "Cross and the Switchblade") Memorable only because it starred William Shatner, Andy Griffith, Julie Adams, and Ruth Roman as concerned adults. It was also Mackenzie Phillips first film. It was released in 1973.
It's on YouTube...I might have to watch it again.

[apandaaries]

7 hours ago, smittykins said:

My 7th grade English class(1978)studied "Jay's Journal."

That book was used in a class?!?  Was it presented as a true story?  I read that one after I'd found Go Ask Alice.  Both terrified me.  

Man, I remember reading those books and providing exactly the emotional response the writers were aiming for. Both were dreadful -- a few mistakes here and there snowballing into major avalanches which lead to dead protagonists... The odd diction and phrasing didn't slow me down too much, as I read a number of other slightly dated books which always had peculiar terms or sayings, so my early teen self just figured that times had changed.  I had NO idea there was a movie based on Go Ask Alice!  I might have to check that out later.  

Now I want to reread Go Ask Alice and Jay's Journal..

 

[Howl]

@FeministShrew, love the term "testimony porn"!  

Beatrice Sparks seems to be inspired by writers from an earlier time. 

...one day I will even have to leave my father and mother’s home and go into a home of my own. But ever I will take you with me.”

She’s really awfully nice.

Quote

 the music began to absorb me physically. I could smell it and touch it and feel it as well as hear it. Never had anything ever been so beautiful. I was a part of every single instrument, literally a part. Each note had a character, shape and color all its very own and seemed to be entirely separate from the rest of the score so that I could consider its relationship to the whole composition, before the next note sounded. My mind possessed the wisdoms of the ages, and there were no words adequate to describe them.”

Pretty good description of dropping acid.  Did Beatrice take a little tab of LSD to more accurately report on the experience?  

[Black Aliss]

I remember my oldest kids being entranced by The Education of Little Tree, which purported to be a memoir of an orphaned Cherokee boy being raised by (I think) his grandfather.

Turns out the author was not only NOT Cherokee, he was a white supremacist, possibly even a Klansman. His other published work was George Wallace's famous Segregation Forever speech.

Sure was a great little children's story, though.

ps: spellcheck wanted to change "purported" to "purposed". I wonder if that's the etymology of the fundie term.

[nastyhobbitses]

15 hours ago, Antimony said:

I read it. Also thought it was true at the time. 

I did a lot of drugs anyway.

Then I stopped after I felt like I'd had my fill of the whole business and I turned out a-okay. 

I was born too late for Go Ask Alice, but I read plenty of Scared Straight stuff, smoked a whole lotta weed anyway, and then decided to stop when I moved overseas and liked not being deported way more than smoking weed. Now I'm back in the States permanently (and realized in November what a horrible decision this was) and still don't feel especially inclined to smoke, not because of any scare tactics, but because I just have too much shit to do and have other things to spend my money on. I honestly think that a better anti-drug message would be "listen, smoking pot is fun and all, but after a while, you're just going to be too busy to do it and it's going to be the last line item on your budget once you have to start making and spending your own money. Don't drive when you're high, have a serious conversation with your doctor if they want to give you opiates, and don't take Molly without testing it. Have fun, kids."

[Cleopatra7]

Now I want to read some of Sparks' other works, just to see how implausible they are. Based on what I read on Goodreads, the one about Nancy, the girl who gets date-raped and dies of AIDS, sounds particularly awful in terms of providing accurate information on the social issue in question. I have no doubt that situations like that do happen, unfortunately, but if "Alice" is any indication, I think the real point of "Nancy's" story is to impress upon girls that going to concerts with strange boys will invariably lead to a downward spiral nightmare of date rape and AIDS, not to provide a sensitive and medically accurate portrayal of a young person struggling with HIV/AIDS.

[smittykins]

3 hours ago, amandaaries said:

That book was used in a class?!?  Was it presented as a true story?  I read that one after I'd found Go Ask Alice.  Both terrified me.  

 

At the time, yes, it was presented as a true story.

ETA:  it was still the 70s, and there weren't as many parents' groups getting their panties in a twist over such things.

[NerdyHil]

Ha! I knew this book wasn't a real diary, but I didn't know who the author really was. Fun story, my super-Mormon community JR high library refused to carry this book. I love the fact that the author was a Mormon too.  The librarian also banned Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. My best friend's copy was passed around like black market goods.   Thank fuck the HS librarians were cool as hell and did their best to highlight those books that have been challenged in other libraries.

[GeoBQn]

13 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Now I want to read some of Sparks' other works, just to see how implausible they are. Based on what I read on Goodreads, the one about Nancy, the girl who gets date-raped and dies of AIDS, sounds particularly awful in terms of providing accurate information on the social issue in question. I have no doubt that situations like that do happen, unfortunately, but if "Alice" is any indication, I think the real point of "Nancy's" story is to impress upon girls that going to concerts with strange boys will invariably lead to a downward spiral nightmare of date rape and AIDS, not to provide a sensitive and medically accurate portrayal of a young person struggling with HIV/AIDS.

As I recall, Nancy progresses from HIV to AIDS unusually quickly.  I think she's dead 3 years after getting infected.  The book even had a disclaimer about it, claiming that her "immune system was weak to begin with."

[morri]

Thats quite interesting, we actually read this book in our German class in secondary school. nevertheless it is realistic enough I guess if ou read christiane F (I rea dit in the original , german ) you may know it or not.. (christiane f or the kids of Zoo station. ) She is still alive afaik but she never really managed to find her way out of drugs despite several attempts at fixing her life.

 

but funny to be so dismissive about go as alice though, there are plenty diary like books that are known to be literature and no body is dismissive about them (or series on tv like skins or what not or how many movies are there that are based "on real events" but really quite far from the actual events?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F.

[Cleopatra7]

3 hours ago, morri said:

Thats quite interesting, we actually read this book in our German class in secondary school. nevertheless it is realistic enough I guess if ou read christiane F (I rea dit in the original , german ) you may know it or not.. (christiane f or the kids of Zoo station. ) She is still alive afaik but she never really managed to find her way out of drugs despite several attempts at fixing her life.

 

but funny to be so dismissive about go as alice though, there are plenty diary like books that are known to be literature and no body is dismissive about them (or series on tv like skins or what not or how many movies are there that are based "on real events" but really quite far from the actual events?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F.

I think there's a difference between books or movies that are "based on a true story" but more or less fiction, and a primary document that claims to be the diary of a real person, whether alive or deceased. This is why neo-Nazis spend so much time trying to convince people that Anne Frank's diary was a hoax, because Frank's story puts a human face on all the children lost on the Holocaust. Discredit Frank's story and that human connection to the Holocaust is impaired. This isn't to say that there aren't many good fictional stories about the Holocaust, but a primary document brings the event home in a way fiction can't. Similarly, you have a very different experience of "Go Ask Alice" if you know it was a fictional story written by a middle aged Mormon woman, rather than a real diary kept by a teenage girl who really had the experiences in question. 

[applejack]

I remember devouring Go Ask Alice as a kid, and then falling into a rabbit hole of all these "fictionalized diaries" from It Happened to Nancy and Jay's Journal. There was even an attempt a couple years ago to shoulder Beatrice Sparks' legacy and make more "in the style of Go Ask Alice." There's Calling Maggie May (Teen girl becomes a sex worker), The Book of David (high school football star figures out he's gay and gets outed), Letting Ana Go (Girl with anorexia), and Lucy in the Sky (Go Ask Alice Part 2, Electric Boogaloo: This Time with Fewer Consequences!)

The newer ones, at least according to Goodreads reviews, are worse than the originals, and there seems to be particular hatred for Lucy in the Sky.

[Flossie]

I've never read any of those books, although the "Ask Alice" sounds familiar, like I've heard of it before.

I have so many questions.  When was it discovered that the author manufactured 'diaries', but presented them as real?  Did she ever get in trouble for that?  Did she get to keep the money she made?  A reporter who makes up a story and then has it proven to be false has real life repercussions.  Does nothing happen to a published authorhave who is proven to have made up stories that are supposed to be true?

It's different if a person were to write a book and explain in advance that the story is a combination of the stories of several people who had similar experiences and ended up in a similar place.  It's another thing entirely to present a story and claim it is solely the writing of the diarist.  

[louisa05]

19 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

I remember my oldest kids being entranced by The Education of Little Tree, which purported to be a memoir of an orphaned Cherokee boy being raised by (I think) his grandfather.

Turns out the author was not only NOT Cherokee, he was a white supremacist, possibly even a Klansman. His other published work was George Wallace's famous Segregation Forever speech.

Sure was a great little children's story, though.

ps: spellcheck wanted to change "purported" to "purposed". I wonder if that's the etymology of the fundie term.

We read that in English class in 7th or 8th grade, but I think it was presented as fiction by then (mid-80s). Something about it didn't read right to me even as a middle schooler, so maybe that had to do with the author's biases. I don't know. I don't want to read it again to figure it out. I do remember my classmates loving it, though. I was definitely in the minority disliking it. 

[PopRox]

This is embarrassing , but i read alll the Sparks book mentioned here when I was in middle school (late 90s).

I was also an awkward kid who stayed out of trouble !