Hot on the heels of Fear Street were other series about teens uncovering the goings-on in their hometowns. Mark Rivers’ Taggard Point was one of the more fleeting attempts; it both began and ended in 1995. The series’ namesake does not sound too ominous when compared to a place called Shadyside, however there is plenty of horror to be found in this coastal town. For instance, the fourth and final volume turns a summer of fun into a summer of fear when a clown menaces the locals.
The Clown is set shortly before Memorial Day, and everyone in Taggard Point is naturally heading for the pier and beach. Unfortunately for Emily Mathews, she is stuck working at the WonderLand Pier rather than working on her summer tan. The one bright spot is she gets to work alongside her best friend, Lacey Mellin, and boyfriend Eddie Ortega. They all bond over their dislike of grouchy boss George Daniels. Emily’s summer looks to be uneventful until someone dressed as a clown starts scaring her. She first spots the frightful fool while closing up shop, but he quickly vanishes before Emily can get a closer look.
Emily first thinks Eddie is pranking her; the suspect also wears an orange wig like Eddie, who plays one of the carnival’s many clown performers. But unless Eddie can be in two places at once, Emily’s harasser has to be someone else. Of course this does not stop others from thinking Eddie is guilty. Apart from being creepy at a distance, though, the clown has not done anything substantial enough to warrant Emily calling the police just yet. Coming to her in her dreams and saying “Welcome to my WonderLand” is not exactly proof of a threat, either.
It didn’t take long for the first person to die.
The strange stuff happening in series like Taggard Point is exclusively noticed by the young folks, and the adults tend to be nonfactors in the following investigations. So it makes sense for Emily not to talk to her parents about the clown. As it turns out, her real reason for not telling them is because she feels her father and mother have enough problems on their hands. Mr. Mathews’ small software company is on the edge of ruin, hence Emily getting a summer job to help pay for college. This era of young-adult books is criticized for focusing on well-to-do characters, but The Clown is one of many examples where the protagonist comes from an increasingly less comfortable background. Any luxuries Emily might have had at one point are now disappearing. So because of the unrest at home, the clown begins to feel like a manifestation of Emily’s worries.
Everything changes once Lacey is attacked under the pier by someone resembling Emily’s clown. The story’s sense of dread is still rooted in reality at this point, especially now that the assailant is affecting someone other than the main character. The clown is not a figment of the imagination. The book feels further realistic when Emily asks mutual friend Marta Creyal if Lacey was sexually assaulted. Rivers’ contemporaries often glossed over this aspect for their own reasons, but here the author brings it up before quickly moving on.
Despite the obvious connection between her own encounter and Lacey’s ordeal, Emily stays silent about the clown. Even stranger is Lacey not telling the whole story to the authorities; she claimed she fell. Lacey assumed the police would not believe her if she told them the truth. There is also the possibility of the cops suspecting Eddie since he is the one clown on staff with orange accessories. Lacey fears coming forward will incriminate a friend she believes is innocent.
Then a voice whispered, Good night, Emily, and the balloons rose lazily into the dark.
Early on, Emily points out her mother’s misgivings about Eduardo “Eddie” Ortega. This is apparently because he lives on “the south, not quite prosperous, side of the river.” What Mrs. Mathews might be implying is then said outright by Rick Majors, a rich jerk who Emily’s mother prefers over Eddie for superficial reasons. Needless to say, Mrs. Mathews, like many other people, has been fooled by Rick’s wealth and good looks. Every time the pompous lifeguard speaks to Emily and her friends, he says something either generally insensitive or flat out racist. He refers to Eddie as “Taco” and makes a joke about him and Mexican food.
Tension is high after a random woman is later found dead and Lacey’s ex is beaten up; both incidents took place under the pier. And in no time, Rick’s girlfriend Louise goes missing after he accused Eddie of stalking her. His motive for thinking so may not seem unfounded — Louise was previously followed by a clown one night, and Rick is aware of Eddie’s job — but readers would be remiss to overlook Rick’s prejudice in this case. He fails to remember Eddie is not the only clown working at WonderLand, much less the only employee with access to the costumes.
The Clown comes across as a cut-and-dry teen slasher, but specific details say otherwise. For starters, Lacey heard the same message from Emily’s dream — “Welcome to my WonderLand” — when she was attacked. Then, a balloon with a mind of its own appeared outside Emily’s home. These smaller phenomena both suggest something other than a mere human killer in a costume is afoot. And surely enough, there is a lot more to the story. The book eventually veers into Scooby-Doo territory when Emily and her fellow teen sleuths conclude the clown is none other than Mr. Daniels, the curmudgeonly boss being forced into retirement.
She said softly, “Welcome to my WonderLand.” And yanked the switch down, just as the clown began to scream.
Emily and her friends finally confront Mr. Daniels at WonderLand after hours, and they find him tampering with a ride as part of his masterplan. What the heroes do not realize is, Mr. Daniels did not simply throw on a clown costume when carrying out his crimes. No, as it turns out, Mr. Daniels is a clown. Rivers takes the book’s Scooby-Doo quality even further by having the villain completely succumb to his monstrous desire for revenge. The author squeezes in a bizarre explanation about a drawing Emily discovered in Mr. Daniels’ lair. Based on a clown he drew in his own blood, Daniels was then transformed into a sort of were-clown all thanks to the great amount of energy flowing throughout and beneath WonderLand. Does this make any sense? Not necessarily, but it works in the moment.
On the back of every Taggard Point book, the plot is preceded by a blurb stating the town is full of “evils that are not entirely human.” Even knowing something uncanny is in the pipeline, readers still have to exercise patience before anything absolutely supernatural happens in The Clown. The wait is worthwhile, seeing as Rivers’ measured approach comes with a big and exciting payoff. This last entry is not only a great example of clown horror before the trope became more widespread, it is also a solid sendoff for a regrettably short-lived series.
There was a time when the young-adult section of bookstores was overflowing with horror and suspense. These books were easily identified by their flashy fonts and garish cover art. This notable subgenre of YA fiction thrived in the ’80s, peaked in the ’90s, and then finally came to an end in the early ’00s. YA horror of this kind is indeed a thing of the past, but the stories live on at Buried in a Book. This recurring column reflects on the nostalgic novels still haunting readers decades later.
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