Look Behind You

Anything I might say about Lois Duncan has been said one hundred times better by Lizzie. But I still feel compelled to write about Stranger With My Face. It was my bed companion for two days, after all, and many an old friend has come forward and cheered me on for reading Lois Duncan, positively exuberant over how much they love(d) her and are willing to re-read her at the drop of a hat.

Early books, the books we grew up surrounded by, are a popular topic in the litblog world. "I have fond recollections of reading Little Women with ma-MA by the fire," however, is something I could never say. I never read Little Women. In fact, I'm quite positive that, apart from what was read to me when I was younger, my early-to-middle reading experience was quite the opposite of classic: Christopher Pike. Lois Duncan. Rinse. Repeat. My mom would attempt to slip Rebecca or The Good Earth into my rotation, and I would reluctantly and with slumped shoulders resign myself to being sucked into du Maurier's drama before tossing the book aside for more teenage lizard people.

The neon glow of those covers accompanied us everywhere: to the girls' toilets where we used to congregate during recess, giggling and gossiping; to the principal's office when we got caught. The smell of school carpet, papier mache, nacho cheese, and drinking fountain water on every page. The tape peeling away from the library catalogue number. We all thought we had psychic powers. Telekinesis. Axe murderers in our ranks. We all knew about the couple that had died in that horrible motorcycle accident out on Dead Man's Curve, and how to get their ghost to appear; we all thought there might be a race of lizard-like aliens living in a cave in the woods behind the football field.

Underneath it all lay our dilemmas: boys, bodies, broken chain letters. Queen Bees (or whatever they were called back then) whispering horrible, evil untruths in our ears at slumber parties while another girl's Bloomies began to harden in the freezer. Or not being invited to the slumber party at all.

No wonder I related to these shunned, special, outsider girls. And no wonder, recently, at my most vulnerable, down with my third cold in as many months and feeling incapable of squeezing out the words I wanted to put on the page, I decided to return.

That's a lot of nostalgic pressure to put on one author.

I expected to read a few pages and throw Old Lois down again in disgust, disappointed over how much better it had been when I was thirteen. But honestly, honestly? I couldn't put the book down. I think it's incredibly liberating once in a while to give up on what you think you're supposed to be reading, and head in an entirely different direction. After all, when the evil whispers of writer's block are telling you that you can't do it, that you're no good, they always say you should step away from the page. And where better to run to than the comforting arms of the very thing that got you through all the evil whispers in the first place?

Now, watch me bend this spoon.

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.