B i g L o v e : Rewriting the Modern Man
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cultural responsibility akin to safeguarding family heirlooms” (Dyer and
Romalov 28).
What the secret keepers are afraid of shattering is the myth of authorship
that gives the imaginary Carolyn Keene a cult following. When Harriet Adams
claimed to be the sole writer behind the pseudonym her excuse was that she
would have had “to mention a cast of thousands, and besides, she was protecting
the children” (Johnson “History” 51). Perhaps so, but what is being protected is
a marketing device that allows consistency to the extremely popular Nancy
Drew books. To read Nancy Drew is to believe in Carolyn Keene and, more than
that, to believe in Nancy. A, not surprisingly, anonymous ghostwriter, signing
his/her essay as Carolyn Keene, writes of his/her childhood experience reading
Nancy Drew as characterized by an adoration and identification with the
protagonist (Keene “Writing” 73). S/he related the consistency and popularity of
Nancy Drew through the diverse company of writers and editors to “the power
of Nancy herself’ (74). This “Carolyn Keene” thinks Nancy has not changed too
much over the years, although 1 argue that those changes are significant to her
subversive potential. And, s/he finds the character Nancy the perfect girl:
She goes where she likes, when she likes, and is always
surrounded by good friends. She’s friendly, popular, generous
with her time and energy, always ready to help those in need,
and able to solve most any problem. The girl gets results.
She’s basically no one, and therefore everyone, and when we
are Nancy (inside that place that is Nancy Drew) we’re in very
good shape (Keene “Writing” 77).
As the young reader forms an identification with Nancy Drew and works out
his/her mysteries with her, the reader also reads as Carolyn Keene, as author.
The reader has the advantage of reading the narrative in its third person point of
view, being able to open and close the book, peek ahead, and otherwise learn
more than Nancy might. The young reader then gets to play God in both author
and protagonist signature systems. Reading as protagonist and author, playing
God in two subject positions, is a powerful imaginative practice for young
readers.
As critical adult readers we can see how this reader subjectivity defers and
decays, how, through revisions, Wirt Benson’s work and her bold protagonist
both break down. As Wirt Benson loses her rough and tumble Nancy and the
revisions reinforce the new characterization, Nancy’s subversive adolescent
agency and advanced literacy become contained in the nuclear family. As the
syndicate’s pseudonym as family secret is discovered and recovered, the
pseudonym’s signature breaks down. The endless deferring continues to decay
but can find no resting place thus transforming a theological structure that lets
young readers play God into a counter-theological structure that could
potentially alienate them. It is this fear of alienation that drives Adams’s notion
of protecting the children by maintaining the myth of an individual author.