As a teenager, the adventurous lifestyle of Nancy Drew and her friends was addictive. I’d borrow books of the series from the library, rereading my favourites several times over.
Re-reading them as an adult, it is a totally different experience. Nancy hasn’t changed since the books were written all those years ago, but I certainly have since I found them in the 90s. My connection with the books was as a by-product of reading the Baby-Sitters Club series, in which one of the main characters were reading the Nancy Drew books pretty much exclusively.
At their core, the books follow a simple formula. Nancy meets someone troubled, and she asks why, and learns that there is a mystery attached to their lives. Or, alternatively, she is offered the chance to go on a trip, where part of the lure is the mystery attached. Either journey, she takes her friends along for the trip. By the end of the book, the mystery will be solved and Nancy will be reunited with Ned and her friends and the title of the next book is revealed.
Nancy represents the need of the time for young female readers to see an independent, smart, strong, role model type, who definitely ‘has it all’ at eighteen. She has a loyal, albeit sometimes absent boyfriend, and two best friends who follow her into the depths of each mystery. Nancy also has a wealthy father (who practices as a successful lawyer to boot), making the need to seek out a paying job for herself non-existent. She is intuitive, compassionate to others and is slow to anger. In fact, she rarely seems to lose her composure despite the situations that she ends up in. She fights against what others view to be a typical detective, frequently told that she doesn’t look like a detective.
At the age of eighteen, Nancy and her friends have an extraordinary amount of maturity and street savvy.
They are also dangerously co-dependent upon each other. They wouldn’t think about going on the hunt for a mystery without the others in tow, and Nancy will always be unquestionably in charge. Ned, Bess and George follow Nancy without question or concern for her or their own wellbeing. They seek out thieves and smugglers, people who normal people are afraid of and would try to avoid. Her father actively encourages her to work on mysteries instead of getting a job or seeking out further study like Ned has. At the time that these books were written, I get that wasn’t the norm, but when is a teenage, unlicensed detective exactly normal?
Nancy may have had it all, but looking back at these stories made me realise how much has changed in my own attitudes. The lure of these stories is somewhat still there, after all a little nostalgia trip doesn’t hurt, but I can’t help but think how I will feel about other books that I read when I was younger in readings to come.
