My Fragmented Life….The Hardy Boys

Recently, a friend posted a photo on Facebook of an old Nancy Drew mystery called, The Mystery of the Black Keys. He captioned it, “For a laugh.” The implied joke was for those of us who are huge fans of The Black Keys, one of the best rock bands to ever come out of Ohio. At least, I think he did it for that reason, since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read Nancy Drew.

As I looked at the cover, it triggered a childhood flash back. I’m always amazed at the brain’s ability to forget important events in our lives. Then, something, usually a picture or a smell, triggers a flood of powerful memories. The Nancy Drew cover reminded me of her male counterparts, The Hardy Boys, and how they transformed my early life.

I’m always asked what it takes to become a writer. My first piece of advice is not very original, I’m afraid.  It’s an answer that writers from Stephen King to Michael Chabon give on a daily basis; you must read. There’s no substitute or getting around this basic fact. Whenever I encounter someone who says they want to be a writer, and then they tell me they don’t read very much, my response is always, “Good luck with that.”

I would take it further. To be a writer, you must be obsessed with reading. Not only obsessed, but read everything you can find. Writers should be downright unfaithful when it comes to their reading tastes. It must be a passion, a guiding light, and the center of a writer’s thought life. 

All the writers I know talk about books being intertwined with their earliest memories. The next time you ask a writer about her favorite book as a kid, watch as her face slides into a dreamy, faraway stare before she answers. The reason for this strange look is because the first book they can remember is probably the story that inspired her to become a writer.

I realized, this week, the books that inspired me was the Hardy Boys series.

There is a photo of me, as an eight-year-old kid, holding a Hardy Boys book in my hands and giving my dad (who snapped the shot with his new camera) a very serious look. I remember sitting and thinking, “I want whoever sees this picture to know what I read more than anything, The Hardy Boys.”

Reading is the only thing I really excelled at in school. No one could match me. I read faster than my classmates, and I understood the content. In one particular instance, early in my second grade year, I finished a history article well before everyone else. My teacher didn’t believe I read the whole thing. She gave me a five question quiz, and I aced it. Recognizing my gift, she started to pile on more difficult books, and that included The Hardy Boys.

She recommended that I check out the books, and I went into my Catholic school library. As can be expected, in a parish located in a town of fifteen-hundred people, we didn’t have a ton of books. Still, the librarian managed to stock every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys book ever published.

I started with the first one, The Tower Treasure, and I was hooked. I wouldn’t read anything else, and I begged my parents to buy me an actual book of my own. Considering how poor we were (I once ate egg sandwiches for breakfast and lunch for three months straight), what I asked put an enormous amount of pressure on my parents. Somehow, they scrounged up book three in the series, The Secret of the Old Mill, and the books forever captured my heart.

I think they regretted the purchase, because I became obsessed with The Hardy Boys. If you’ve ever read the books (by which I mean, read them as a kid and not as a snobby adult), you understand why they captured the imagination of a poor Catholic kid. The Hardy Boys always tried to do what was right and put criminals in jail. Although my understanding of who the “good” and “bad” guys actually are changes with each passing day, I still believe in the categories. I’m still an eight-year-old kid in regards to my views on good and evil.

I make no apologies for that.

Frank and Joe went to really mysterious and cool places. The only place I’d ever been in my life was St. Louis, Missouri, which seemed like a huge city beyond imagining. Sure, I would travel into nearby Kentucky or Illinois, but most of these places resembled my southern Indiana home. When I got to travel with The Hardy Boys to the desert southwest, or even sit with them to their home in Bayport (somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean), I went to places I could never reach on my own. I think I can safely say that The Hardy Boys played a role in the development of my restless, traveling soul.

The Hardy’s met really cool people who liked them, hung out with their close friends, and looked out for each other. I envied them because I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. No one really wanted to be friends with a kid who made stuff up all the time. Frank, Joe, and their friends became my friends (another common writer trait, making friends with fictional characters). I spent more time with the Hardy Boys than I did real people. Real people hurt too much.

I think it’s pretty easy to see why I became a novelist and storyteller. I want to create worlds that people can escape to and find solace when things are bad. This is why I love hearing from readers when they tell me, “You know, your book helped me escape for awhile. Thanks.” I, unlike most people, don’t consider “escapism” a bad thing. Being able to escape “mentally,” helps find rest for our souls.

Thanks, multiple writers who make up Franklin W. Dixon. While God gave me my life calling, you drew it out of me through Frank and Joe Hardy.