Exposing the Myth of a Popular Book: Rick Emerson's Unmask Alice

 Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson

Unmask Alice book cover

As someone who grew up slightly terrified of drugs because I ended up reading Go Ask Alice in 5^th grade (around the time DARE infiltrated my school), I was both excited and somewhat confused to read this book. It’s still somewhat hard for me to accept that Go Ask Alice isn’t a real book since I really loved the book and felt a kind of connection to  Alice. Although it’s not necessarily the same as Anne Frank’s diary, I think I also read that book around the same time, and these were both young people who were experiencing similar issues in adolescence as me. Emerson takes a deep dive in exploring the life and “experience” of Beatrice Sparks, the real writer behind Go Ask Alice and Jay’s Journal, another “diary” from a troubled adolescent. In reading this, Alice’s experiences and views make more sense. I always wondered about many of her experiences on drugs and how she was able to write about them, but seeing how Sparks took her experience working with troubled adolescents as well as capitalizing on the death of Diane Linkletter, I can see how these were kind of general perceptions and fear mongering form adults against drugs painted with incredibly broad strokes. It was amazing to learn how someone like Beatrice Sparks could lie about her degrees and experiences and end up gaining the kind of trust and responsibilities that she did. Although this still happens, I think it is less likely to happen now. I was amazed that she was viewed as a kind of early mental health expert and counselor, despite not having a college degree. It was really surprising to see how readily people accepted and believed her. One of the joys about this book was that Emerson was a lot like other young readers growing up in the 70s and 80s who came across Go Ask Alice and were so drawn in by this terrifying tale of hippies. His sarcasm and contempt for Sparks make the read much more enjoyable, as he frequently calls her to account for completely lying about her credentials, and potentially putting at risk kids at greater risk. Furthermore, Sparks’s betrayal of these young people’s trust and confidentiality are even more shocking and upsetting. The fact that Sparks was able to exploit and profit from these troubled teens’ lives and problems is wrong. I really enjoyed this book, even though it kind of challenged my assumptions about a powerful book that has resonated with me across the years.