Jezebel
Welcome to 'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth. This week, writer/reviewer/blogger Lizzie Skurnick rereads Richard Peck's 1976 novel 'Are You In The House Alone?', the story of a teen named Gail Osbourne and her Very UnSpecial Rape.
I am 34. I say this not because you asked — although I think some of you have asked, actually — but because it's key to understanding why through the babysitting days of my youth, I was incapable of getting through the night without being incapacitated by the thought that an attacker with a hyper-attuned grasp on my every move was waiting in the bushes for the minute I got the drumstick-shaped chicken nuggets scraped off the tray. Because for the entire stretch of my girlhood, they were raping everyone! First Kimberly was locked up by that old man and molested while Arnold banged on the door. Then Natalie had some bus-station incident with Tootie banging helplessly on the door. Irene Cara had to show her breasts to the pervy guy in Fame — even a girl in the Fame spinoff TV series got raped.Justine Bateman got perved on by her dad's best friend. The pretty daughter on Gimme a Break had her sweater half-ripped off, if I do not mistake myself, and then they raped Dee Dee. (That's from Hunter; I might be taxing even my own generation bracket there.) They raped Cagney. Actually, I think they raped every cop, just to show you still couldn't defend yourself if you were a cop. (I'm surprised they didn't rape Kit). And there was of course, the infamous Lipstick ("They raped my sister!") which we weren't supposed to watch but did.
I know nowadays — as I rock in my corncrib chair — they have shows devoted to rape and the procedural accoutrements thereof. But I cannot explain how disconcerting it was, back in the days of the dual slot of Love Boat followed by Fantasy Island, in the days before TV had any serious dramatic pretensions whatsoever, to take a major characters from an ordinary comedy or a cartoonish detective series and just freaking assault them.
I know, I know, there was that new statistic about one in four women getting raped! I know they were trying to bring attention to an important issue! I know they all also had a suicide show or an alcohol show to also shed light on those important issues! But I don't care. By the time my television set got around to raping Dr. Melfi, I sat up straight in my chair, livid — because I didn't care if they were bringing attention to important issues, they were also just raping someone again!
Anyway. I only lay out the Rape-In-Our-Times roundup to emphasize how Richard Peck's Are You in the House Alone? was such an important counterpart to the one-episode treatment, and to wonder, given the temporary cultural fascination of the time, why there weren't more books like it. (In fact, I can only think of one, if we don't count Go Ask Alice: Happy Endings Are All Alike by Sandra Scoppetone, which had the double whammy of rape AND lesbianism.)
Are You in the House Alone? is the story of Gail Osbourne, a teenager who moved from New York to the Greenwich-esque Oldfield Village in Connecticut when she entered high school. Gail is dating Steve Pastorini, a hot, working-class brainiac given to sending her notes with quotes from Othello, and is the best friend of Allison, who is dating Phil Lawver (ironic name alert! ironic name alert!) scion of the richest family in town. Yes, nowadays you wouldn't be able to look at that foursome without pretty much knowing what's going to happen immediately.
It's interesting to me how Peck breaks all the sorts of narrative conventions we'd have going in this kind of story nowadays, when we'd either have to save her just in the nick of time or Bastard Out of Carolina her happy life into oblivion in the aftermath. First of all, Gail is kind of chill about sex at the outset without that being a explicit narrative facet of her relationship — she is on the pill, she is having sex with Steve but it isn't DRAMATIC that she is. Her best friend, Allison, is planning on marrying Phil right out of high school and taking her place in society (that really was a little anachronistic; I had forgotten how characters used to do that and it wasn't weird!). But after the rape, Allison sells Gail out and abandons her to her fate completely—when is the last time the best friend did that? Also, she and Steve don't last romantically — but it's not because of the rape. Mrs. Montgomery, the hip and likable divorcee Gail babysits for and whose house she's raped in, actually tells her she can't let her babysit for her anymore, because it's too much of a reminder. (When was the last time the hip divorcee totally copped out on the feminism thing??!!??) And though Gail's parents can't save her from what's happened, they also don't go vigilante or accuse her of anything — they're just powerless to help her. When Gail — who wants to — goes back to school a week later, no one really knows exactly what happened.
Oh by the way, obviously, it's Phil Lawver who rapes her, after creeping her out for weeks by leaving psychotic notes in her locker and calling her up and saying, you know, "Are you in the house alone?" (Just another one of the few reasons this book couldn't be written today. Besides doing an emergency breakthrough — REMEMBER THOSE??? — if someone's phone was busy, you were shit out of luck. Nowadays, obviously if you were "in the house alone" and a call came up "Restricted" and you were freaked out, you would just CALL your boyfriend who was delivering a load of pipe with his dad to someone two hours away and he would be like, "JESUS, Gail," and you would text your eight friends or Twitter or Dodgeball them or whatever and then log into Facebook and be like OMIGOD. In fact, cell phones have so denatured the entire phone trope in horror movies — the call is coming from inside the building!!!! — I guess the cell phone itself has to kill you now.)
What Peck is interested in is laying out the ways Gail can't help herself when the harrassment starts, but also why it wouldn't have mattered even if she had. When the lawyer her parents hire asks her why she didn't tell people she was being threatened, she thinks: "It was like running a film in reverse. The events skipped back in a blur, jumbling up. Alison saying, 'It never happened, Gail.' My mother saying, 'What has that Steve Pastorini done to you?' Connie saying, 'Men can't afford to fail. It's like bred into them.' It seemed to that everybody had turned blind ears and deaf eyes to me." Then she asks the lawyer, "Why does the law protect the rapist instead of the victim," and he gives my favorite answer ever, unglossed, just the last line of the chapter.
"Because the law is wrong."I don't know if what happens to Gail is realistic — being able to go back to school soon afterwards without loads of Paxil, keeping herself together more than her family can, being able to handle being ditched by her best friend, being able to smash Phil's windshield when he bothers her again without feeling helpless or powerful: "Just knowing I could give Phil Lawver a little hell, even if that only meant scratching his surfaces....What can I say? That thinking made me feel better? No, but it got me through the moment. I carried the rock from Mr. Wertheimer's garden all the way home, not thinking about the moments to come."
What can I say? That Are You in the House Alone? is a realistic narrative? I'm not sure it is either. But I appreciated, in the midst of all the Very Special Episodes, that Peck was giving a look at rape in teenagers that took on the outside and the inside world, and that was neither salacious nor bleak, something I never saw anywhere else:
Later, in that winter, Mother said, "It could have all been worse."....I don't know. Bob?"It could have been worse, Mother, but not much." She was sitting at her desk in a little pool of light, composing a real-estate ad for the newspaper. "Not much worse. We were all trying to protect ourselves as individuals and families instead of organizing to make everybody safe. There are more Phils out there, you know."
"Don't talk that way," she said.
"Well, there are. We should have done something else. We still should."
"But what?" Mother said. "What could we do?" And then she turned back to her work.
Are You In The House Alone? [Amazon]
Lizzie Skurnick [The Old Hag]
Earlier: Jacob Have I Loved: Oh, Who Am I Kidding, I Reread This Book Once A Week
• Then Again, Maybe I Won't: Close Your Eyes, And Think Of Jersey City
•My Darling, My Hamburger: I Will Gladly Pay You Tomorrow For A D&C Today
•All-Of-A-Kind Family: Where I Would Put Something Yiddish If I Thought You Goyishe Farshtinkiners Would Farshteyn
•Island Of The Blue Dolphins: I'm A Cormorant And I Don't Care
•Little House In The Big Woods: I Play With A Pig Bladder Like It's A Balloon
•The Grounding Of Group Six: Have Fun At School, Kids, And Don't Forget To Die
•Are You There Crazy Psychic Muse? It's Me, Lois Duncan
•Were You A Judy Blume Enthusiast Or A Babysitters Club Nerd?
Comments
OMIGOD i am only skimming this because this book fucking traumatized me. my skin is actually crawling just looking at this. i did not know what rape was before i read this book, and after i just felt so dirty and gross and exposed. i remember being out with my dad the night i read this book and thinking that every adult could read my mind and know that i was a girl who read about rapes. didn't he beat her with a fireplace poker before raping her?
I feel like some of these reviews need footnotes for those of us who were locked in the basement with only PBS to keep us company. heh. Interesting!
I forgot all about this book! The copy I read had a different cover that had a million questions on it: "Are you in the house? Are you alone? Are you? Are you alone in the house? Are you in the house alone? Are you are you?" It was dizzying!
If I remember correctly, our Gail didn't wear a bra, which was one of the reasons the bad guy thought it was okay to rape her?
I just want you to know that I wait for this feature all week. It's the best part of a Friday workday.
I love these posts. Love.
@katastic: Agreed, even when I haven't read the book, these are still enjoyable.
This book scared me! It was very graphic, nothing like the "almost" rape in the Sweet Valley High books.
Eaten comment? Gosh, I hope so...
I don't know that book, but it reminds me of this other book my sister owned, that I can't remember the title of. It was about two friends (girls) and I think babysitting was involved. One of them had lost a baby brother, I think, possibly because he drowned. The other also had a baby brother, but he suddenly died. While the friend was babysitting him. I think. Anyway, in the end the baby brother turned out not to be dead. Some lady had poisoned him with poison from the fugu fish, and he'd been declared dead and been buried, and then the woman (or a man) had dug him up and sold him to a rich couple. And the friends figured this out and were poisoned in their turn (I think) but they survived and all ended well. Oh, and one of the friends was blonde and the other Asian. (Again, I *think*)
To make a long story short, does anyone know which book I'm talking about?
Wow, the girl on the cover lookseerily like "If You Had My Love"-era J. Lo.
Don't forget Jean, from Billy Jack. The sheriff's son BER-nerd raped her too. Damn those high society bys and their lack of impulse control!
Lizzie: Yes, they did rape DeeDee on Hunter. I saw that one, and another one a couple years later, where DeeDee is almost-raped.
I'm so ashamed to admit that once I liked Hunter. I see it now and wonder WTF I was thinking.
I nearly hyperventilated when I saw this title as the subject of this week's "Fine Lines"! This book has haunted me since I first encountered it as a mystery-loving 4th grader. I had no idea what was going on -- it was certainly no Agatha Christie.
I work in a library and I'm totally checking out our available copy now. Good timing too, because I am finishing Stine's Babysitter I and II. My boyfriend thinks I'm backsliding into idiot territory now.
I remember the cover of "Are You In The House Alone?" so vividly, I feel I must have read it, but have no memory of it whatsoever.
Does anyone remember when Alfred's girlfriend was raped -by a clown- on Little House on the Prairie? I was completely traumatized by the rape outbreak during family hour in the early 80's.
@soleil-moon-pie: Okay. I definitely read this. I remember the no-bra-blame aspect.
I must have been so upset by it, I blocked the whole thing out.
@katastic: Me too. I haven't read this one either, and now I want to.
Slightly off topic, but I HATED Chase for the Melfi rape. It seemed utterly gratuitous.
This book was very popular at my jr. high, it took forever to get it from the school library. When my mom caught me reading it she asked why I couldn't just stick to reading Judy Blume.
Can we pick the next traumatizing YA novel you review? I vote for Patricia Hermes' "You Shouldn't Have to Say Goodbye" (1982), about a girl who loses her mother to cancer.
Yowza. That book did a number on me.
Raped by a clown?! That is the ultimate nightmare. Or at least mine. I'm scared now...
This book traumatized me too. It was rough.
@BeSarcastic: Oh my god! That one messed me up as well!
I think this was before my time and I don't know if I would have read it. I had already been molested and didn't need to read books about bad things that could happen since I knew what was out there.I preferred to read about being desperately in love with some boy, life 's unfairness (ala Jacob have I loved) or fantasy books involving unicorns and magical places. Sounds interesting though.
@hortense:
Hold me.
Ahhh, early 80s sex abuse... "Something About Amelia" anyone?
Finally took the time to read the whole post, and for a while there I thought I *had* read this book. But I think the one I read had the same premise (the rapist, or perhaps a murderer, the babysitting, the phonecalls) but the creep didn't succeed in raping/killing the babysitter and he turned out to be the father of the couple she was babysitting for.
Again, a book title I can't for the life of me remember!
@whoneedslight: Oh my God! Who could watch Cheers after that?
I would love to have someone read Speak, or even a bunch of books about this stuff and compare them - I can't think of any other book about rape (other than Speak - refuse to count The Lucky Bones) but then I'm not really trying.
@haguenite: I think I read that one too- could it be from someone like R.L. Stine?
I only just read this book a few years ago because I was jonesing for some of that "gun-toting grannies who spit tobacco" middle grade fiction that Richard Peck does so well. This was kind of a shocker. I kinda felt like Richard Peck was just really the wrong author to be writing this.
SPEAK by Laurie Halse Andersen deals with this subject matter in a more realistic way, I feel.
@BeSarcastic: There was also "Don't Die my Love," where the teenager loses her childhood boyfriend to leukemia.
@lydia_gwilt: I remember seeing that rerun as a teen and rushing home to see part 2. That episode confused the crap out of me....
Oh, god, isn't this the one where her father basically falls apart, and she thinks he's at work and she sees in his suit sitting on a park bench, full of impotent rage and just sitting there?
That killed me.
@rose0red: Also loved Hunter when I was clearly too young to be watching it. And remember the DeeDee rape and almost rapes. The women cops really did get victimized a lot. But DeeDee McCall was still super badass.
Um...and you forgot about Webster when his little girl friend was "touched" by their creepy schoolteacher.
Did anyone read "When She Hollars" by Cynthia Voight? That's another one that scarred me. About a teenager being abused by her stepfather and then she goes nuts and gets her revenge?
Just one more way that the Young Adult aisle of the Craighead County Library traumatized me. I'm pretty sure Phil would have been on the receiving end of some Country Justice around those parts.
I guess the question is: Why was I so compelled to read those "in jeopardy" books?
@Leiakat: I believe that's by Lurlene McDaniel, the author of the most hilariously depressing books of all time.
@solaana: Speak is fantastic.
[www.randomhouse.com]
I used to have a blog devoted to the hilariousness of Lurlene McDaniel's books about people having cancer. I'm going straight to hell.
I actually still have this book and came across it recently, reread it and realized that not much has changed when it comes to this subject. Pretty much the woman has to prove it beyond any reasonable doubt, alot of the time all on her own. I also remember the TV movie that had Dennis Quaid as Phil Lawver. Vividly.
@LadySkittlehattington: Eh, then I'm going with you, cause I thought they were hilarious too. Teen melodrama usually is.
I never read this one, and I think now I have to. But I just wanted to chime in and say OMG on all the rape listings (and as I recall, Natalie escaped being raped, but Tootie almost became a teenage prostitute just for wanting to go to the theater in New York; there's a comeuppance for you), and I seriously did notice that 90% of the plots of 90% of the crime shows before 2000 would be completely implausible in the age of cell phones. Damn cell phones, taking the drama out of everything in the new millennium. No wonder TV and movies have sucked.
Oh, I loved this book. Which I guess is sick. But I remember being really scared by it, and loving Gail's toughness against the evil rapist, and I totally had a crush on Sonia (or whatever her name was), the cool artsy loner girl who wore neat vintage clothes. She was also raped.
And I was really confused by the silent movie their drama teacher showed them, that she had starred in when she was very young. It was some scene where a guy in a mask either climbs into a woman's room or starts assaulting a woman on a balcony (in a "romantic way," of course). I was horrified, esp. seeing it through Gail's eyes, but also turned on by the idea of the movie.
I am kind of embarrassed to write that, and also glad I have therapy in an hour.
this book was way before my time. for some reason, my middle school preferred race/poverty stories (roll of thunder, hear my cry) to sex abuse.
My generation had it so easy. The scariest babysitting book was Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls.
@kpjones: Oh good. We can start a book club in hell then.
@LadySkittlehattington: Those look and sound simply delightful!
My best girl friend and I could peruse through them while watching Harlequin Classic movies with a glass of wine.
@AfternoonAttendee: dude, that kept me from babysitting for almost a month!
The book that sticks in my mind is 'Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack' anybody ever heard of that one?
I am also 34, and learned about most bad things from Diff'rent Strokes (rape, check. pedophelia, check, bulimia, check). On an unrelated note, I believe the Knight Rider car was KITT (two Ts).
And I never read the book; I can clearly tell from the cover that it would have freaked me the hell out.
@99centbar: They are especially fun to read aloud to get the extra dramatic effect. Also funny? This book description on Amazon.
[www.amazon.com]