How Nancy Drew Saved My Life Read Free

Drew on my mind, I made my way to the children’s department and looked around until I found the originals in the series: small jacketless hardcovers, with their bright yellow spines and blue lettering, the original old-fashioned artwork still on the front.
    Feeling pluckier already, I plucked the first one off the shelf. It was The Secret of the Old Clock. I turned it over, expecting there to be some description of the plot of the book, but all there was was some kind of all-purpose blurb about the series—“For cliff-hanging suspense and thrilling action…”—and a listing of the first six titles in the series, followed by the promise, “50 additional titles in hardcover. See complete listing inside.”
    Fifty-six seemed like an awful lot of titles to have to live up to “cliff-hanging suspense” and “thrilling action,” particularly if they featured the same character time and time again. How good could Nancy Drew be? Was she really that exciting or was someone pulling the young consumer’s leg?
    As I’d said before, I’d never read much Nancy Drew as a young girl, could only remember liking The Witch Tree Symbol, better known to whoever compiled that comprehensive list at the back of the book as #33.
    I plucked #33 from the shelf, flipped through it, the memories flooding me. There was Nancy climbing on top of a tabletop, holding a lantern up to a ventilator and passing one hand in front of the light at intervals such that the S.O.S. signal would be transmitted, over and over again. (I’d have just screamed for help and then died before anybody came, because help was too far away to hear a scream but it could see a well-planned S.O.S. signal.) There was the young detective, at the end of the book, not thinking about what she’d just been through but rather turning her mind to the next mystery, with a ham-fisted authorial plug for The Hidden Window Mystery, #34.
    I put the book back on the shelf. It all seemed so… kitschy.
    But suddenly I found myself curious, curious to know what had attracted generations of readers. Even if I had always assumed her to be too retro for my tastes, year after year the books had kept selling. And, surely, if Maureen Dowd was touting her as the answer to the world’s problems…
    It took several scoopings, but I scooped up all fifty-six books, everything from #1, The Secret of the Old Clock —and that clock on the cover really did look old, with Nancy sitting there on the ground at night, looking all intrepid in her green dress and sensible watch, legs tucked ladylike to the side as she prepared to do something unladylike to that clock with the handy screwdriver in her hand—to #56, The Thirteenth Pearl, with its vaguely pagodaish cover. So #56 was the last one? I thought. God, I hoped she didn’t die in the end. Even if I didn’t end up liking her any more than I had as a little girl, that’d just kill me after reading about her for fifty-six books. I was fairly sure that after reading all fifty-six books, I’d start feeling attached.
    Then I noticed that there were other books on the shelves with “Nancy Drew” on their spines but with different packaging. So she did live on!
    I hauled my armloads over to the nearest available register and plunked the books down.
    â€œA completist’s present for some special young person?” the young man at the counter asked.
    â€œYes,” I said, opening my wallet to pull out the necessary cash. “Me.”
    He raised a tastefully pierced eyebrow.
    â€œMy childhood wasn’t so good and adulthood hasn’t been much better so far,” I said, “so I’m doing a do-over here.”
    He just shrugged. Apparently, he’d waited on weirder.
    Fifty-six books at $5.99 each came to…
    â€œThree hundred and thirty-five dollars and forty-four cents plus tax,” he said. “Cash or cre—?”
    I handed