Dispatches from the 60s #6
Phyllis A. Whitney's The Haunted Pool
I always have a few long-term reading challenges running—nothing I’m too aggressive about, just a few vague goals. For instance, as a mystery lover, I’d love, SOMEDAY, to be able to say that I’ve read all of the juvenile Edgar Award winners and honor books. And so, occasionally, I dip in to that list.
In 1961, Phyllis A. Whitney’s Mystery of the Haunted Pool was the first-ever winner of the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Novel. There are no honor books listed, which I suspect is more about a dearth of children’s literature aficionados on this early Edgar panel than it was about her Badass Writing Chops. Even with my limited knowledge about what came out that year, it’s hard to imagine that it was truly not only the best-of-the-best children’s mystery novel of 1960, but also the ONLY children’s mystery novel of 1960.
(Note: I have not REMOTELY started researching to see what other juvenile mysteries came out the same year—so who knows, maybe this really was the only one that made the grade. But I highly doubt it, so it’s been added to my list for further rabbitholing.)
My knowledge of Whitney is mostly as an romantic adult suspense writer—if you’re not familiar with her, think along the lines of Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. But in poking around, I discovered that before her Gothic period, she wrote loads of children’s novels. And not just that! She also wrote a book called Writing Juvenile Fiction (1947), which was revised and re-published a least once, right around the same time Mystery of the Haunted Pool came out.
[Related: In the next award year, Whitney was the only runner-up—which, again, it seems unlikely that there were only two eligible children’s mysteries. Then again, there’s only one movie screenplay nomination/winner for the 1961 awards—the screenplay for Psycho, which, as a winner, I’m not going to quibble with. I did some poking around, and realized that none of my other personal film mystery faves from 1960—Eyes Without a Face, Peeping Tom, and Purple Noon—were American. But as In Bruges won the award in 2009, being American does not appear to be part of the criteria? I’ll have to do a bit more research to figure this all out. Anyway, the screenplay category was retired in 2009, which is a bummer—but it’ll still be fun to eventually work my way through the movies they honored over the years.]
An excerpt from Writing Juvenile Fiction that suggests that Phyllis A. Whitney was a Kindred Spirit
Finally, to prove I could do it, I wrote a “grownup” book. It was a murder mystery, and, if the reviewers were right, not too bad a job. After it was a published a well-meaning lady came up to me one day.
“I understand you’ve written a mystery novel,” she said.
I admitted that I had.
“It’s a grownup book, isn’t it?” she persisted.
Again I admitted the unhappy truth.
She nodded approvingly. “Isn’t that fine! You’re going ahead now. One of these days you’ll be writing something significant.”
I decided that the next time I looked about for a victim for a murder mystery, I would make this woman my first choice.
Mystery of the Haunted Pool stars 12-year-old Susan Price, who is sent from New York City to the Hudson Valley to stay with her aunt. The rest of the family—four brothers and her parents—will join her in a month, hopefully to allow her father to continue convalescing from an unnamed-unless-I-missed-something illness.
However! The family hasn’t nailed down a place to live, and Susan has been tasked with befriending a local elderly sea captain and his grandson, in the hopes that if they like her enough, they’ll be willing to move out of their house and rent it to the Price family. Which is… not much of a plan, and also a whole lot of pressure to put on a 12-year-old? As always, 1960s-era children’s books are wild.
Over the course of the novel, Susan gets to know the inhabitants of the town, learns the importance of fire safety, uncovers a mystery, and makes friends with an incredibly prickly boy.
Ultimately—and despite a legit Lost Treasure—this book is MUCH more of a friendship/coming-of-age story than it is a mystery? But it DOES bear striking similarities to classic Nancy Drew books, in that it:
features a number of hunger-inducing meal descriptions
charmingly and endlessly describes the female characters’ outfits
has a Scooby-Doo villain who ends up not really being a villain
gives Susan a vaguely uncomfortable relationship with a male family member (her feelings about her brother Adam are clearly supposed to read as hero worship, but to anyone who’s read V.C. Andrews, they will absolutely read as incestuous)
delights in secondary characters who speak in Exposition Dumps
includes descriptions of people and general attitudes that many of us in 2024 would term ***Problematic***
Again, it’s much more about Susan’s experiences and growth than it is about the mystery or adventure—I’m still somewhat gobsmacked that it won an award specifically for mystery novels—but it’s a solid read on the former front. I particularly enjoyed that the undercurrents of Susan’s growth were about her coming OUT of her pure hero worship for her older brother—it’s not about the realization that he’s a big jerk or anything, but she does realize that a) he’s not infallible, b) she’s absolutely capable of Getting Things Done without waiting for him to take the lead, and c) there are some things that she’s just BETTER at.
If nothing else, reading this one has me interested in reading more of Whitney’s children’s books—there was both more and less there there than I expected, if that makes sense.
Some choice quotes:
• Susan’s aunt, when Susan gets interested in the Lost Treasure storyline—the Young Ladies Are Such Romantic Flibbertigibbets vibes made me laugh:
“And you with four practical-minded brothers in your family, Susan. What do they do about this imagination of yours?”
I would like credit for spelling flibbertigibbet right on the first try.
• Gene—he’s the Prickly Boy mentioned above—on how the local volunteer fire department runs:
Each man has a special post, of course. But since there’s a rule that a man’s business and his family has to come first in an emergency, there are substitutes for the most important posts.
That just made me howl because he rates a man’s BUSINESS before his FAMILY, hahahaha. This sequence also allowed Whitney to cram in multiple informational pages about fire safety, which was just about as exciting as it sounds.
• As I was—and let’s face it, still am—a diehard Anastasia Krupnik kid, I am ALWAYS here for a TOWER BEDROOM:
The tower made a circular area in one corner, with a curving window seat all around. A bright rag rug, large and oval, lay in the middle of the floor, and the bed was a four-poster with a light patchwork quilt thrown across it. Against one wall stood a graceful old-fashioned chest of drawers, and near a window was a round pedestal table with an easy chair pulled up beside it.
• I’d also love to spend some time in Susan’s aunt’s antique store, though I suspect this description would result in a LOT of questions from younger 2024 readers:
There were butter molds in a tulip design, paperweights with snow scenes inside, and a sewing bird that clamped onto a table and would hold goods in its beak for a seamstress. She found a small, intricately fitted sewing case, and a few cold, bald darning eggs.
• While much of the book is understandably super-dated in terms of attitudes and behavior and assumptions, there are still some moments that resonate wonderfully:
Before she had taken six steps, she was dying to look behind and see what Gene thought of her haughty retreat. It would serve him right if he was sorry to see her go. But there was complete silence behind her, and she knew it would spoil the dignified effect of her departure if she looked around.
• And finally, I had such mixed feeling about this last bit:
His action was rude and bad-tempered, but with four brothers she had been treated to rude bad tempers before this. It did not bother her especially.
On one hand, there’s something about her absolute chill here that I love—on the other, I’m getting some gendered behavior vibes that I’m not a big fan of. Even just bouncing it off of her aunt’s veiled criticism about Susan being too imaginative, something tells me that if she exhibited a lot of “rude and bad-tempered” behavior towards her brothers, they wouldn’t be expected to just roll with it.
Next up on the Edgar front, eventually and/or maybe: The 1962 winner & honor books: The Phantom of Walkaway Hill, by Edward Fenton, and The Secret of the Tiger's Eye, by Phyllis A. Whitney.
Talk soon,
Leila
OK, that quote from her writing book is fantastic. And as someone who's been asked when I'm going to write a "real" book, deeply relatable.
Phyllis A. Whitney sounds delightful. You'll be less delighted to know that that attitude persists, I, too, have been asked when I'm going to write something "a little more meaningful." Please note that all of my other books are filled with backwards sentence fragments and lorem ipsum. 🤷🏾