Jay's Book, by the anonymous aka Beatrice Sparks, PhD

[rachelmanija]

yhlee and I visited the YA section of Vroman's Bookshop in a quest for the ultimately awesomely angsty YA novel.

She proposed that single-syllable, single-word titles often predict great and melodramatic angst. For example, the oevre of Ellen Hopkins-- in verse-- Crank (meth addiction), Burned (child abuse), and Impulse (suicide). (I see that her upcoming book, Identical, is about "a father's twisted obsession for one of his twin daughters," no I am not kidding.) By other authors, Safe (mother is murdered, daughter is raped), Tweak (drug addiction), Cut (cutting), and Sold (child prostitution). The lone exceptions were Hoop, about basketball, and Prom, about the prom.

But then I found Jay's Book, by the same woman who wrote Go Ask Alice, purportedly the diary of a teenager who gets slipped LSD at a party, then becomes an addict and dies, and another one which was purportedly the diary of a teenager who gets AIDS from being raped. The latter has an appendix claiming that condoms are unreliable and "renegade sperm" can charge your vagina and get you pregnant even if there was no penetration.

Jay's Book is purportedly the diary of a boy who commits suicide after getting involved in the occult. The introduction warns, The voice of every kid hooked on drugs, alcohol, or the occult joins the sad chorus, "Not me! I didn't think it could happen to me. I WAS SURE I COULD HANDLE IT.

The back cover promised animal sacrifice and Ouijia Boards, and the contents did not disappoint. It was awesome. It had orgies, psychic powers, rape, channelling, tarot cards, LSD, homophobia, cutting (I think that was when I fell to the floor), wangas (occult objects from "Haiti, land of voodoo"), racism, chanting, and pot.

Other highlights included Bootan worship (I think that was Satan spelled with a B. And an O.) and the sacrifice in a graveyard of a "teeny mewing kitten" after a Bootanic wedding ceremony.

And then the real fun begins! Jay and his cult fiend Satanic druggie friends begin writing in white on black paper. They find a bull and electrocute it with a stun gun. Each organ was immediately sealed in a fruit jar. (Paging Drs. Muraki and Jezebel Disraeli.) They drink the blood and puke.

Then Satan comes after them, and two of them die in Mysterious Car Crashes, and Jay shoots himself in the head. The afterword says, apparently not sarcastically, We feel that Jay lived a pretty full life in his short 16 1/2 years. I'll say!

In conclusion, I leave you with this immortal line of Jay's, and no, it does not make any more sense in context:

The saber-toothed crotch crickets are leaving their abode.

I feel those words of wisdom embody a sentiment we all could live by.

Yoon reports my reaction to this gem of insanity. When she says I fell to the floor, she is not exaggerating for comic effect.

Comments

Renegade sperm

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing they wear leather jackets and ride motorcycles?

The saber-toothed crotch crickets are leaving their abode.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

"I FINALLY got rid of that case of crabs."

[sovay]

*random icon approval*

Also:

The saber-toothed crotch crickets are leaving their abode.

Eeek.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh! I think maybe I read this book. Oh....no, rereading I guess I didn't. A relative concerned about alternative lifestyles (sometimes I wore black) gave me a similar book. The one I read had a female protagonist who ends up pregnant and miscarries and then dies. Or something. Anyway! There was a lot of drinking animal blood out of mason jars and throwing up. I don't remember crotch crickets.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I never read Go Ask Alice but it was always on the paperback rack at the school library, along with others of that ilk. Did you ever read A Summer to Die? It's actually decently written, for a story about a sensitive, artistic girl whose popular, beautiful, and slightly-resented older sister dies of cancer. And I looooved the hurts-so-good bruise feeling of reading and rereading Jacob Have I Loved as a kid. Which is, hm, again about the sensitive, underappreciated sister except x10. I also happen to know my sister read that book and also identified with the protagonist, so, heeee.

(PS: Whenever anyone says "agony" that song becomes impossibly earwormed.)

[gwynnega]

OMG, I remember Jay's Book! I read it when I was a teenager!! Needless to say, it is forever burned into my memory (though I didn't remember the title). Heeeee.

[chickflick1979.livejournal.com]

I totally read Jay's Book when I was a teenager also!

They made us read Go Ask Alice for school, and we had to watch the movie as well. Yes, there's a movie.

I was such an angsty book nerd though, that when Go Ask Alice was assigned in class, I had already read it.

[oyceter]

BWAHAHAHA AWESOME!

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Ahahahahah OH DUDE JAY'S JOURNAL ohhhhh man oh man. I do not have that one, but I _do_ have a nostalgia copy of Go Ask Alice. Oh man oh man bad seventies Doomed Adolescent books....there was, what, Steffie Can't Come Out to Play, which was about incest and child prostitution and the mean streets, and Lisa Bright and Dark which was about a really medically inaccurate case of schizophrenia, and Angel Dust Blues (which we actually HAD TO READ, in junior high) and I think Lisa and David was still a pretty hot commodity then, and I'm so old someone should hang me up on the wall in a bag.

And oh God you would love a series of evangelical books which were sold in the supermarket when I was a kid -- they had v lurid covers and the titles were, yes, one word, usually the name of a girl -- and sort of weird nicks, too, like Didi or Franqui or Jiji or something -- I can't explain it. ANYHOW, there was much lurid detailing of slide into drugs blahblah and then the teenaged narrator would meet a bright-eyed teenager who had Turned Their Life Around and they would guide the narrator to a kindly older man (no no this is not going that place) and then there would be, like, two quickie pages of proselytizing about how great Jesus was and FIN. They were AWESOME. I devoured them like candy to the great disapproval of my parents. Sadly I do not remember who wrote them or what the titles were now -- I did see one on sale in the "bad books" section of Twice Sold Tales about eight months ago, but SADLY did not buy it. Clearly I was insane.

Snopes on Go Ask Alice (http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp)

Actual SLC kid book was based on (http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=1CA81E52-2BF4-55D0-F1F453565FA53A27)

The only thing better is apparently the kid's brother wrote a book about him and then a rock opera was based on it. A revisionist Satanism-debunking modern rock opera!

(Man, after all this you should so do a Flowers in the Attic post. Or, well, somebody should)

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Go Ask Alice. But this sounds... Honestly, it sounds as if the writer and the publishing house had *been* on drugs.

Saber-toothed crotch crickets.

jonquil's explanation feels right, but, WOW. You have to be some way round the bend before coming up with *that* sentence.

[hokelore.livejournal.com]

I think "renegade sperm" would a great name for a band. So would "saber-toothed crotch crickets".

[k-period.livejournal.com]

[quote]The saber-toothed crotch crickets are leaving their abode.[/quote]

The author is clearly speaking about drug use from experience. No unmedicated mind could come up with something quite so ridiculous.

What else has this publisher come out with? I sense a gold mine of unintentional humor.

[genarti]

...

...

What.

*dying of laughter*

[chomiji]

Presumably brought to us by the folks who gave us all the "D&D is Satanism!" stuff ... I remember having to be extremely cautious about discussing my hobbies when I was in college.

(And anyone knows anything knows that you aren't going to raise much power by sacrificing tiny, mewing kittens .... )

XD