Go Ask Alice was published by Prentice-Hall in 1971, the author was the ever popular “Anonymous”. It is a fictionalized account that purported to be based on the diary of a fifteen year old drug abuser who was the daughter of a college professor. She alternately tries to cure herself and descends into drugs again. The lifestyle she leads is shown as depraved, sexually and in all other manners. She runs away, comes back, runs away again, checking out drug scenes in San Francisco and Denver. After a bout in a mental hospital, she once again vows to stay clean. The final entry in her diary is upbeat, and she decides that she doesn’t need to keep a diary as a crutch any longer. A postscript tells us “Alice” dies of a drug overdose three weeks later.
“Objectionable” language, graphic sex and drug use were the cited reasons for banning the book in school libraries in Kalamazoo, Michigan; Saginaw, Michigan; Marcellus, New York; Ogden, Utah; and St. Petersburg, Florida from 1974 through 1982. In 1982, Go Ask Alice was one of the 11 books banned by the Island Trees school district in New York. It was returned to the library after the Supreme Court ruled that to remove it violated the First Amendment rights of the students. Starting in 1983, the book was banned, apparently illegally, in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota; Pagosa Springs, Colorado; Rankin County, Mississippi; Gwinnet, Georgia; Wall, New Jersey; Buckhannon-Upshur, West Virginia; Johnstown, New York and Dudley, Massachusetts.
It seems a bit odd that, after a Supreme Court ruling, censors can still spit on the Constitution of the United States. Why? How can they get away with it? Well, as the Jefferson Airplane said: “Go ask Alice. I think she’ll know.”
Originally Published in AB Bookman’s Weekly
Reference:
- www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp
- www.sparknotes.com/lit/goaskalice/
- www.amazon.com/Antique-Trader-Collectors-Price-Guide/dp/1440203725/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_
