Teen lit: sex, drugs and divorce on the shopping-mall rack
"I have clothes to wear, my own room, a TV and a pushbutton phone," says Marcy Lewis, 13, heroine of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger. "Sometimes I feel guilty being so miserable, but middle-class kids have problems too." Indeed they do, and from Back Bay Boston to Bel Air, Calif., Marcy 's dilemmas and the perils of her fictional peers are avidly shared by a growing legion of juvenile readers. Once limited to such fare as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, teen fiction has blossomed into a lucrative new genre: suburban social realism.
With slangy precision, "Young Adult" novels (Y.A. to the trade) vividly portray addictions, sexual awakenings and even the nightmares of rape and incest, all within skateboard distance of the community swimming pool. Says prize-winning Author Robert Cormier (The Chocolate War; I Am the Cheese): "Kids aren't just sitting there watching TV and playing video games." In fact, teen-agers appear to be buying their own books for a change. Retail giants like B. Dalton have expanded Young Adult racks in their shopping-mall stores. Books such as Rock 'n ' Roll Nights, The Divorce Express and Are You in the House Alone?, wrapped up in catchy cover art, are moving faster than Pac-Man manuals.
One major publisher reports a 400% jump in its teen paperback titles since 1980. Throughout the industry, sales have tripled, bringing a touch of cheer to the financially ailing book trade. Y.A. are even available in lightly spiced series, such as Wildfire (Scholastic) and Sweet Dreams (Bantam), that feature adolescent romances like Saturday Night Date and I've Got a Crush on You. Many heroines in these confections never get to the first kiss. For boys there are thrillers like Your Code Name Is Jonah in Bantam's Choose Your Own Adventure series. These are not traditional adventure narratives. Like Dungeons and Dragons, they allow teen and preteen readers to select their own plots. In The Abominable Snowman, for instance, the reader is a Mount Everest climber searching for the yeti with a friend named Carlos. The friend, however, is missing. "If you decide to search for Carlos, turn to page 5," instructs the book. "If you decide that Carlos is o.k., and go ahead, turn to page 6." Within the 14 titles, there are more than 500 different endings.
George Nicholson, Dell's editor in chief of books for young readers, insists that despite the explicit, eye-catching themes in many of today's Y.A. titles, "we also have considerable respect for this audience. We want to have an uplifting, affirmative quality to books written for children." Adolescents cannot seem to get enough. To keep up with the demand, Dell is offering a $1,000 prize (plus $4,000 in advances) for the most outstanding first Y.A. novel.
One Dell author who no longer qualifies for the award is Judy Blume, 44, godmother of upscale adolescent realism. Nineteen million of Blume's 14 teen tales are currently in paperback. She tackles social and sexual mores with sprightly straight talk. In one of her books, a group of twelve-year-old girls stare at the centerfold in a copy of Playboy, marveling at the model's breasts. Exclaims one flat-chested admirer: "Look at the size of her! They're huge!"