HERALD TRIBUNE: NOV 1, 2005
Byline: SUSAN L. RIFE susan.rife@heraldtribune.com
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CORRECTION: The following correction was published on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2005. The title of one of Lois Duncan's books was misspelled in a story in Tuesday's Florida West. The title is "Gallows Hill".
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When Lois Duncan began writing suspense novels for teenagers back in the early 1960s, the field was wide open.
"I wrote my first book when I was 20 and I knew nothing about (anything) other than young-adult material," said Duncan. "I really was fortunate in the timing that my career started. I clicked into what was a vacant hole in the market at just the right time." Duncan is now the author of nearly 50 books, ranging from children's picture books to nonfiction for adults. The bulk of her books, however, have been aimed at the young-adult market. "I started writing for young adults because I was one," said Duncan, who now is a grandmother. In 1992 she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by the School Library Journal and the Young Adult Services Association for a distinguished body of adolescent literature. She also grew up in Sarasota and last year moved back to her hometown from Albuquerque, N.M., where she and her husband, Don Arquette, had lived for many years. "I'd done a full circle of life," said Duncan, who lives in Pelican Cove in south Sarasota with Don. Although it's been more than 40 years since Duncan began writing suspense novels, they are still in print and selling well, somewhat to Duncan's surprise. "An amazing thing is that the early books that I wrote are still not only in print but doing extremely well, being repackaged and being made into movies," she said. "I must have somehow without realizing it got something in there that was lasting, that appealed to young people. "The young-adult market has changed, but young adults themselves are still what I was and what my daughters were," said Duncan. Five of her novels have been filmed for television and one --"I Know What You Did Last Summer" -- was turned into a motion picture that bears faint resemblance to its original form. Duncan said she was "utterly horrified" --and not in the way movie makers intended -- when she saw the movie. "The first time I knew it was a slasher movie was when I bought my popcorn and bought my ticket and excitedly walked into the theater," she said. When an insane figure with an ice hook appeared on the screen, she thought, "Who is that and what is he going to do to my characters? The heads were dropping and the blood was spurting and I was screaming and the audience was screaming." Readers who write to Duncan about the book often tell her they liked the book better than the movie, she said. Duncan's life became unhappily like one of her own novels when the youngest of her five children, Kaitlyn, was murdered in 1989 in New Mexico. The crime has not been solved; Duncan's frustration with the investigation led her to write "Who Killed My Daughter?" in 1992. "I wrote 'Who Killed My Daughter?' strictly for adults and I wrote it because there was a police cover-up in the case," she said. "I was so helpless and I didn't know what to do next. The only ammunition I have is the ability to write. You use whatever ammunition you have in your arsenal." Although the book was aimed at an adult readership, because Duncan's name was so thoroughly associated with young-adult readers, it found an audience there as well. "It was embraced by teenagers themselves, which came as a surprise to me and the publishers," she said. The book was named "Best Book of the Year" by the School Library Journal and "Best Book for Young Adults" by the American Library Association. Duncan was two books into a three-book contract when Kaitlyn was killed. It took seven years for her to regain enough equilibrium to write another suspense novel. "How could I write about a young woman in a life-threatening situation when our own had been killed?" she said. Her publisher was "very kind and generous and sympathetic." Eventually she was able to "grind out the third book, "Gallo's Heel," and it was surprisingly successful. She will not sell the rights to "Who Killed My Daughter?" although she is working on a real-time sequel. "I could not bear to have Kait's story changed and polluted," she said. Some of Lois Duncan's books Daughters of Eve Don't Look Behind You Down a Dark Hall Gallows Hill I Know What You Did Last Summer Killing Mr. Griffin Locked In Time Ransom Stranger with My Face Summer of Fear A Gift of Magic The Twisted Window They Never Came Home Trapped! Who Killed My Daughter? For more details, access www.loisduncan.arquettes.com.
Notes & Credits
Rife, Susan L. "MYSTERY WOMAN; The Queen of the young-adult suspense authors, Lois Duncan, returns to her hometown". Sarasota Hearld Tribune
1 Nov 2005: 1.
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