Book Description
"If you are reading this, then I am gone and this manuscript, per my instruction, has been delivered to the writer Chelsea Cain for publication as she sees fit..."
America's favorite girl detective is back to set the record straight. According to our titian-haired heroine, she was not a fictional character, but an intrepid real-life sleuth who investigated some of the twentieth century's biggest mysteries. And the famous series she starred in was not cooked up by a team of writers, but plagiarized from her exploits by a nosy college roommate-who, not surprisingly, got a whole lot wrong.
Here are the daring escapes, brilliant hunches, and dependable stock characters, including interlopers from numerous other beloved series, that have delighted generations of fans. And here, also, are the details of teen-sleuth life that you never saw: the secret romances, reckless driving, minor drinking problems, political action, and domestic drama that have, up till now, remained hidden from these brave detectives' adoring public.
About the Author
Chelsea Cain is the author of The Hippie Handbook (2004) and the memoir Dharma Girl (1996). She edited the anthology Wild Child (2000), about children of the counterculture. She has written for a wide variety of publications and is currently a humor columnist for the Oregonian.
Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: Nancy Drew Tells All! a Parody FROM THE PUBLISHER
"If you are reading this, then I am gone and this manuscript, per my instruction, has been delivered to the writer Chelsea Cain for publication as she sees fit..." With these words, Chelsea Cain's delicious and affectionate parody of the beloved Nancy Drew series is off and running. According to Nancy-or Nancy Drew-Nickerson, to be exact (yes, she married sweetheart Ned)-she was certainly not a fictional character, and Carolyn Keene was not a hard-working team of writers, as most people believe. In fact, Carolyn was Nancy's college roommate, who shamelessly plagiarized her tales from Nancy's exploits-and, in the process, got a whole lot wrong. For one thing, Nancy did get older, and each chapter of this book reveals Nancy and her chums solving a mysterious case in a new phase of life. Here are the daring escapes, brilliant guesswork, and dependable stock characters-including not only Bess, George, and Ned, but also interlopers such as the Hardy Boys and plucky nurse Cherry Ames-that have delighted generations of Nancy Drew fans. And here, also, are the parts of teen-sleuth life that you never saw: the secret romances, reckless driving, minor drinking problems, political action, and domestic drama that have, up till now, remained hidden from Nancy's adoring public.
FROM THE CRITICS
Melanie Rehak - The New York Times
Chelsea Cain's gleeful parody Confessions of a Teen Sleuth affectionately hits all the formulaic high points of a Nancy Drew mystery, sending up and yet saluting America's favorite girl detective. All the unspoken truths about money, social status and teenage identity crises ordinarily crammed between the lines of her adventures are outrageously exposed, and the book is no less endearing for it.
Library Journal
In this mock memoir, Cain (Dharma Girl: A Road Trip Across the American Generations) helps legendary girl sleuth Nancy Drew tell her life story. Not only does Nancy reveal that Carolyn Keene (long thought to be a team of ghost writers) was actually the college roommate who stole Nancy's stories to write her books, but she also explains that Carolyn got a lot of the details wrong. Now married to boyfriend Ned Nickerson, Nancy is the mother of Ned Junior, who really is the son of Frank Hardy, for whom Nancy had always carried a torch. All of Nancy's pals also appear, including "boyish" George, housekeeper Hannah Gruen, and Bess, who has developed an eating disorder because she was described as overweight by Carolyn. And Nancy continues to solve mysteries, searching for her mother (who's not dead) in a Japanese internment camp with the help of nurse Cherry Ames and exposing a fake ghost on a cruise ship with the aid of Encyclopedia Brown. This fast-paced, fun-to-read parody feels a lot like the original Nancy Drew books and even includes ten illustrations modeled after the series. It may entice old fans to revisit the original books. Recommended for all public libraries.-Karen Core, Kent Dist. Lib., Grand Rapids, MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A stocking-stuffer tell-all by the "real" Nancy Drew follows the sleuth decade by decade. Carolyn Keene, the official author of the original detective series, was actually Nancy's neurotic college roommate who failed her only attempt at sleuthing and wrote untrue accounts about Nancy out of jealous vengeance. Now, Nancy is attempting to set the record straight. We learn that the real love of her life hasn't been Ned Nickerson but Frank Hardy-of the Hardy boys-whom she met on a case as a teenager in the 1920s. She dutifully marries Ned but bears Frank's son after working with him again to foil Nazis during WWII. In 1959, she becomes involved in a morally questionable CIA plot concerning Patrice Lumumba that marks the end of innocence in sleuthing. Soon Nancy admits that her marriage to Ned is in trouble. The story goes on to her caper in San Francisco during the summer of love, Nurse Cherry Ames's murder at a feminist convention in the '70s, and finally to a geriatric rekindling of romance with Frank. Fans of the teen detective genre will like the clever but tame co-mingling by Cain (Dharma Girl, not reviewed, etc.) of series heroes from Drew up to Encyclopedia Brown (but no sign of Harriet the Spy). Agency: Joy Harris Agency
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