Unmask Alice

Truly enjoyed this bit of sad, weird history. Really wish the citations had been more thorough as it kinda hurts a true crime work's credibility when the core thesis is centered around the concept of falsified research and the like. Still, briskly paced and readable.

First I'm going to pick my jaw up from the floor.....Now I'll proceed.

Go Ask Alice was a very influential book for me in middle school and in high school (2000's era). I took so much away from the book and connected with it on such a personal level. It shaped me.

With that being said, the deep dive into the history of the publication, along with other diary style titles and how they impacted a toxic culture blew my mind. Satanic panic has been a topic I find endlessly fascinating and this book did not disappoint me in adding to my growing knowledge. The details on drugs and the war on drugs had me shocked. And I won't even begin to discuss Beatrice Sparks and the endless ways she slipped through every filter there was because I think reading about her with fresh eyes is the best way to go. The state of publishing, libraries, and bookselling is touched on and another interesting aspect of the book. I went through the emotions of shocked, sad, mad, furious, and heartbroken. This is a story that took so long to tell, which is such a shame, but Rick Emerson did a great job.

When it comes to non-fiction books, I enjoy them, but I tend to take a longer time to read. I need to really let the information sink in. With Unmask Alice, however, I couldn't read it fast enough. I needed all of the information ASAP. Emerson's writing is very readable and the mix of his personal touches (and opinions) I felt added to the readability. While authors' opinions can detract from the information in non-fiction, I thought it added to it (maybe this is because I agreed with all of them, but you never know).

There's so much more I want to add, but I don't want to spoil anything for readers. I highly recommend reading Unmask Alice!

I couldn't put this down! I already knew a fair amount about Beatrice Sparks but HECK, there was a lot I didn't know.

Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson

Unmask Alice covers the story of Beatrice Sparks... a woman so desperate to become a writer, she fabricates diary excerpts and puts them out as non fiction....

Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries is a true story of contagious deception. It stretches from Hollywood to Quantico, and passes through a tiny patch of Utah nicknamed “the fraud capital of America.” It's the story of a doomed romance and a vengeful celebrity. Of a lazy press and a public mob. Of two suicidal teenagers, and their exploitation by a literary vampire.

Unmask Alice . . . where truth is stranger than nonfiction.

This was what made me want to read this book so bad!

Go ask Alice was used to push the agenda on drugs during the war on drugs. The father of a young lady who ended up dying because of her life choices, made it his mission in life to vilify the drug LSD instead of blaming the choices his daughter made that led to her death. He needed something or someone to blame.
The second book Jay's journal, came from a real boy... a real boy who committed suicide but she made his story into a dramatically version of events, making it seem like he was a devil worshipper.
Not only did she lie about being a psychologist, she used people to get what she wanted. She was the worst kind of bottom feeder.
These books helped fuel hysteria in the 70s and 80s. This book was a real eye opener on the dangers propaganda can have on the population. This is a problem we still see today. Politicians and the news feeding media hysteria to get what they needed. This book goes into details of what the president did to get what he wanted and it was never about public safety.
This is a cautionary tale of how you should always be mindful of what you are reading and whether you can take it for facts. You need to think for yourself and do research rather than blindly trusting.
The author did a ton of research and it was well thought out. I really enjoyed the way it held my attention. I actually had no idea about this woman and these books but now I want to know more.
4.5 stars for me!

As a teenager, I remember reading with equal parts fear and excitement the “anonymous diary of a teenage girl” who descends into a world of drugs, sex, and crime. It never occurred to me that the story wasn't real. But Go Ask Alice, and numerous follow up “diaries” were almost completely fictional creations of Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon wife and mother who yearned to be taken seriously as a writer.

Unmask Alice starts out strong, with brief glimpses of Sparks' life and the 1971 political/cultural environment that made it possible for Alice to become a worldwide sensation. But then it detours into a long, tragic saga of a teenaged boy whose suicide became the basis for Sparks' next bestseller. I guess Emerson wanted to show that the truth was heartbreaking enough before Sparks added Satanism, blood sacrifice, and explicit sex to the diary given to her by the grieving mother. But a few examples of the real diary would have been just as effective. Soon the narrative becomes repetitive, as Sparks creates numerous fictional diaries, passing them off as true stories of the troubled youth she counseled (her clinical experience and training were also fraudulent). She never got the literary acclaim she wanted, but she never suffered any consequences for her lies and manipulation either.

It's common knowledge that Go Ask Alice is a complete fabrication (see 2003 entry in Snopes.com), but Emerson never describes how and when Sparks' masterpiece was gradually discredited, acting as if he is the first person to connect the dots. He does not provide any citations or references, claiming in his author's note that the reader can look stuff up online to verify his facts. In the few instances of “things that aren't public and for reasons of privacy aren't currently checkable,” hopefully they will “ring true” to the reader. Emerson claims to have conducted copious interviews for the book but does not list any of the subjects, or attribute any of their quotes. As far as he's concerned, he may have printed some factual errors, but since it was not done intentionally, it's okay.

It's sadly ironic that Emerson's book about a woman who took the adage “never let the facts get in the way of a good story” to the nth degree, fails miserably at demonstrating that he is any better than Sparks.

I was going back and forth on how to rate this one. It is very readable and the story it lays out is fascinating (plus, I love his love of libraries/librarians), but I'm not sure how it holds up as a work of nonfiction. Emerson is definitely not an unbiased author and his decision not to include citations is worthy of a side-eye. It's not that I particularly mind his bias - I'm certainly no defender of Sparks and his asides often made me laugh - but coupled with the lack of citations, it makes me hesitant to give it any more than a 3 “"”anonymous””” “"”real””” diaries out of 5.

This was a very entertaining/interesting book...but...

1) I think it should have been about Alden Barrett from the beginning. His was the most interesting story and made up the bulk of the book. I know Alice is more famous but it was weird that Alden Barrett is not even mentioned until Part 2. The section that was just a narrative of his life was the most compelling and read like a sort of real life, third person and slightly more clinical version of catcher in the rye. Then the following stuff about how his family suffered and his story was exploited was really sad. The author still could have included the satanic panic and Beatrice Sparks stuff, but framing it explicitly around that story would have made sense since it was by far the most interesting part...

2) A lot of the negative reviews on Goodreads focus on the fact that he didn't cite any sources (he explains in a general sense how he got the info). Unlike some of the reviewers, I don't think he did this maliciously or made anything up necessarily...but this feels like a very lazy/stupid move in light of what this book is largely about (debunking fraudulent works of “non-fiction”). Like, sir, why not just list your sources and clearly delineate yourself from the person you just wrote an entire book criticizing?