Duped...

[harmony_bites]

Has anyone ever read Go Ask Alice? It came up when discussing “creative non-fiction” on YIM with keket_amunet, which is her field. Basically, creative non-fiction is not supposed to be creative in the sense of fabricated, but it’s supposed to cover works written about real people and events that keeps to the facts but is written in such a way it rises to

Comments

[closetravenclaw]

Poor HB, the wool is gone (so to say). I never had to read this book, but reading the article things stand out as just wrong. Being slipped a drug and then start shooting up. Sorry, but when slipped something you want nothing to do with anything remotely resembling those people and drugs. And the part a bout being slipped two amphetamines and waking up two days later in another city, if she was on amphetamines she would have been awake for the trip to the other city, not sleeping. Try "The Basketball Diaries"

[harmony_bites]

I think I was all of twelve when I read it or not much older--and I've never reread it. I was also someone from a family free of illegal drugs, and I've never personally experimented--not even marijuana. Never even been drunk actually--so it's not like I had much real life experiment to judge it against.

So yeah, I was pretty much suckered, and I hadn't thought of the book in years, but I remember it making an early impression somewhere along the lines of The Diary of Anne Frank. "Alice" was, and still often is, represented as non-fiction--so it really was a jolt to learn it's a fraud.

[closetravenclaw]

It seems nost readers of this book were Jr. High age. I wonder though if now days, since things start so early, if twelve year olds would think it was hype.

The Diary of Anne Frank, now that I read. :D

[harmony_bites]

That is around when I read it--and I read it only the once, yet I can still remember a passage when the diarist said that making love for the first time drug free was like being a virgin again, and her in the end saying she was giving up the diary because it was time to talk to people, then the devastating addendum that she had died in a drug overdose. I felt for the girl of that diary, and remembered her over twenty years later. Now to find she's a fraud...

[harmony_bites]

I never read The Hiding Place, but I did read Alive, which naturally, left quite the impression. And I also read Rule's book--so I definately understand your reaction. The other "true crime" book that made an impression on me, even influenced what I wanted to do as a career, is Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, about the Manson murders of Tate/LaBianca. Back before Law and Order when people reflively rooted for the defence, I was cheering on the prosecution.

So, yes, these kinds of books can leave quite the impression--so it's shocking to me that one that did so is a fraud--and one it seems that is still being perpetrated.

[tkurogrym]

Never read Go Ask Alice, but I do remember my disappointment when I discovered that Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf was also utterly fabricated -- and continues to be printed under the label of nonfiction. That's not to say that some of it isn't quite plausible, but some of it also is quite a stretch. As someone who developed a love for wolves as a child, including this book as wolf behavior gospel, it was a real let down.

[harmony_bites]

Oh boy--another to add to the list. I also loved Never Cry Wolf, and had never learned it too was false coin.

::waves:: Haven't seen you around for a while.

[larilee]

I remember the controversy when it first came out Beatrice Sparks fabricated 99% of her books. "Jay's" family has been very vocal over her additions and how they feel they are simply lies told as a precautionary tale. Jay's real problem was depression, undiagnosed by the family, friends, church and physician because good Mormon boys don't get depressed. They gave his diaries to Beatrice in hopes she would use them to educate others about depression, that's it's a real problem and not just demons attacking you because you have yet to go to the temple and get your funny underwear. His family, brother especially, is quite disillusioned by the LDS leadership as well

[harmony_bites]

The instance of "Jay's Journal" sounds even worse--there she exploited a real human being, and betrayed the trust of his bereaved family

[atlantel]

and often still sold as non-fiction in bookstores and shelved as non-fiction in libraries, is the fabrication of a religious anti-drug propagandist.

Well, but it worked, I suppose, it worked. Have never read such a book, nor even seen one like this around here...
Education might be different, I don't know.

[harmony_bites]

It may have worked in a way--though I doubt it really effected me--I've never even been drunk, let alone tempted to try illegal drugs. And for those more familiar with that world, the book seems an obvious fabrication it seems. Even were it more plausible, teaching kids thru propaganda like this is imo like a rot on the brain worse than any illegal drug.