Topic 3: The Seance By Joan Lowery Nixon

Nixon, Joan Lowery. 1980. The Séance. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2004. Original edition, Harcourt, Inc. ISBN: 0152050299.

When a teenage girl disappears from a séance held in another student’s home and later turns up dead, a small East Texas town is stunned. When the student who conducted the séance later turns up murdered it becomes obvious that someone is targeting the entire group of girls who attended. In Joan Lowery Nixon’s THE SÉANCE, one teenage girl must ferret out the murderer before she becomes the next victim. As an orphan Lauren lived with her Aunt Mel in a quiet town on the edge of the Big Thicket. When juvenile delinquent Sara comes to live with them, Lauren takes an instant dislike to her. Sara was pretty and “wore her sweaters and blouses a size too small” (Lowery, 3.). She also snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to meet with boys. Lauren wants to refuse when Sara invites her to attend the séance being held by Roberta, a new girl in school, but when the other girls get together, they convince Lauren to come. From the beginning of the séance, the spooky feelings scare the girls, but it isn’t when the lights go out that the scary part begins. Though the doors and windows are locked from the inside, Sara disappears in the darkness.

Nixon’s writing uses a quick pace that pulls the reader along in a current of images, sounds and emotions. The first person narration by Lauren allows the reader to connect with her. THE SÉANCE is “carefully plotted with fair clues for the readers, but hints that don’t really prepare one for the smash finish.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 78.) Over and over the sheriff questions the girls at the séance and they each deny locking the door behind Sara, so at the end of the book, it is somewhat annoying that the person that connected with you was lying about her role. The hints and clues that are sprinkled throughout the story can cast blame on a lot of people in town, much to amateur detective Lauren’s frustration. Nixon’s expert writing ratchets up the suspense as Lauren becomes more and more paranoid about the members of the small town she lives in.

THE SÉANCE also looks at the relationship between family members, friends and community members. Living with her “forthright, caring, but undemonstrative Aunt Mel,” Lauren was “content with her lot.”(Publisher’s Weekly, 78.) “I didn’t even know that I wanted to be held and loved and caressed until Sara came and drew those feelings from the air and them out in front of me…” thinks Lauren. (Nixon, 47.) Having wished Sara would just disappear, Lauren feels guilty when she turns up murdered. Nixon expertly hits on the confusing mix of emotions that teenage girls often feel as they are growing up and interacting with other girls and the boys they sometimes fight over.

Reference List:

Nixon, Joan Lowery. 1980. The Séance. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2004. Original edition, Harcourt, Inc.

______. 1980. Review of The Séance by Joan Lowery Nixon. Publisher’s Weekly (April 11):78.