Title: Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries
Author: Rick Emerson
Published: 5th July 2022, BenBella Books
Status: Read July 2022 courtesy BenBella Books/Edelweiss
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My Thoughts:
I was about eleven when I read Go Ask Alice, which I think it came into my possession via a friend’s much older sister. It was a cheap early paperback edition, already quite worn my guess is it had already passed through a few sets of hands in the way that certain books (like Flowers in the Attic) did when I was at school. Presented in the form of a diary, I read Go Ask Alice with a mixture of fascination and horror, aghast at how easily Alice, a bright, pretty, American suburban teenager spiraled into drug addiction, prostitution and homelessness, before dying from an overdose. I believed it was a true story, after all it said so right on the cover, and it was the mid eighties, so the ‘War on Drugs/Just Say No’ campaign was in full swing, providing plenty of reinforcement. Alice’s example must have lodged deeply into my psyche, I’ve never even been tempted to try hard drugs, too certain that her fate could be mine.
It was probably only a decade or so ago that I learnt Go Ask Alice was not a true story at all, but was written by a middle aged Mormon woman named Beatrice Sparks. When the fraud was exposed, Sparks insisted it was based in truth, inspired by her work as a youth counsellor. I remember being annoyed by the deception, but I’m furious having now read Emerson’s book, Unmask Alice.
Unmask Alice is a seemingly thoroughly researched, exposé of Beatrice Sparks, revealing her background, how she came to write ‘Alice’, and her subsequent deceits, including the publication of Jay’s Diary, which fed the ‘satanic panic’ of the late 1980’s. Sparks purpose for writing Go Ask Alice may not have been entirely bereft of good intentions, but the same definitely can’t be said about Jay’s Diary. Convinced of her own righteousness, Sparks presents as manipulative and narcissistic, with a disdain for truth and a hunger for recognition. She claimed demonstrably false education and experience, and wielded a wholly dismissive attitude toward anyone affected by her hubris.
By today’s standards, Go Ask Alice, Jay’s Diary, and Sparks other works are obvious in their hyperbole, but in their time they appealed to the conservative elements of society reeling from social upheaval, fed by the naivety of sheltered suburbanites and a dearth of understanding about youth and mental health. Even if you have never read Go Ask Alice or Jay’s Diary, (though you probably should for context), Unmask Alice offers fascinating insight into how and why the books gained such recognition and support, and the enormous cultural impact which still reverberates fifty years later.
Though the narrative style of Unmask Alice ensures it is a compelling read, it can be said to be somewhat problematic. Emerson does not always make a clear distinction between the evidence he gathered from first hand sources and his own editorial input. I’m inclined to trust the author did his research and isn’t deceptive, but then I wholeheartedly believed Alice was a real person too.
It’s disappointing to have been duped by Sparks, who died in 2012, and her enablers, including her publishers who still perpetuate the fiction of her ‘true stories’. While Go Ask Alice could be recognised as having a positive effect of scaring young girls into rejecting drug taking, I have enormous sympathy for the family of Alden Barrett, and the many lives Sparks’s fictional account of ‘Jay’s Diary’, damaged.
Provocative and intriguing, I found Unmask Alice to be an absorbing read that was informative,surprising and entertaining which I’d recommend to anyone interested in social history or literary hoaxes.
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