A guilty pleasure, I’ll confess, is reading the Dark Shadows novels by Marilyn Ross. As a child I found these stories tucked away in a paperback bin at the local second-hand store. If I could find one I hadn’t read, I would snatch it up for a few cents and begin reading right away.
Formulaic and predictable, the little books always evoked a stormy atmosphere of the Maine coast. I’d never been to Maine, but watching the soap opera had cast an image in my young mind that would stay with me for life.
When, as an adult, I grew nostalgic for the paperbacks I’d sold back so long ago, I found them difficult to locate. ABE, the friend of lost treasures, led me back to most of them, followed by Bookfinder. Re-reading them, however, I notice the lack that young eyes just couldn’t see.
I’m not sure when I realized Marilyn Ross was actually a pen name for Dan Ross (or properly William Edward Daniel Ross). I was, however, acutely aware that these gothic tales might be categorized as romance, a genre I’ve always avoided. And still…
Recently, my life lacking luster, I picked up one of these little books like a bit of Turkish delight on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I’ve read maybe a dozen of them as an adult, but it was blindingly obvious that the literary talents of poor Marilyn were taxed by such a prolific output.
The adjectives give him away. A girl’s face is nothing but pretty. Collinwood is always gloomy. Barnabas Collins is always handsome, strong, and cold. The plot line is thin and the story always ends where it begins. But I can’t help myself.
As a child my collecting was haphazard. As a “grown up” I’ve managed to find the first twenty of thirty-some volumes online. Sometimes years will pass without reading one. But those days when I do, I find much more than a flimsy story in flimsy olive-green binding. I find a piece of childhood. And that, at any point in life, is a guilty pleasure.
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