A Halloween Tribute to Lois Duncan

Curious about what it was like to grow up a little girl in Brooklyn with an affinity for the macabre, a non-censoring mother and carte blanche use of her library card? Well, let me tell you: her to-be-read pile was filled with copies of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, volumes of Truly Tasteless Jokes, Judy Blume’s Wifey  and countless YA thrillers and horrors. And in the 80s, the YA horror masters were Joan Lowery Nixon, Christopher Pike (Fall into Darkness), Richard Peck (Are You in the House Alone?), and the QUEEN—Lois Duncan (1934 – 2016).

Why is Duncan the uncontested leader of the pack? People! She wrote hit after hit for two decades. And while I have some recent faves that are classics-in-the-making (Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova; part of an amazing trilogy!), books Duncan wrote in the 60s reached my curious little big brain in the 80s and made it to the big and silver screens in the 90s and early aughts. Just this month another version of I Know What You Did Last Summer made its debut on a streaming site. Very few novels have that amount of staying power. Very few authors create the kind of stories that survive decades and entertain generation after generation (how many times have you watched AnnaSophia Robb in Down a Dark Hall?). 

Like, have you ever read Stranger with My Face—about an adopted teen who learns about astral projection (and suffers the consequences of toying with powers she doesn’t fully understand)? It doesn’t just drip with supernatural vibes, it’s a dissertation on cross-cultural/racial adoption and the importance of knowing where you come from. Summer of Fear was instrumental in teaching me that strangers—especially the super nice and helpful ones—are not to be trusted. And Ransom reminded me of the many reasons I didn’t like to ride the school bus (and why I felt lucky to have grown up in a big city). 

Duncan’s books showcased regular people as the monsters. Because, honestly, there’s nothing more frightening (Daughters of Eve) than the terrible things (Locked in Time) humans do to one another (Killing Mr. Griffin). She understood that, and wove it into fantastical books with simple, yet intriguing prose, and I devoured each title I borrowed from the Marcy and DeKalb branches under the cover of night after all my homework was done.

Sadly, Duncan’s daughter was murdered in 1989, prompting the author to stop writing in the suspense genre. In a 2014 Buzzfeed article, she stated, “How could I even think about creating a novel with a young woman in a life-threatening situation?” Gallows Hill (1997) was the last of her published thrillers. Don’t let that stop you from enjoying all of Duncan’s work; these books are timeless and deserve to read over and over and over again.