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Prom Dress (novel)
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Wikipedia article
'Prom Dress' is a 1989 young adult horror fantasy novel by Lael Littke, following the story of Robin, a working-class girl who steals an old prom dress from her elderly employer that turns out to be haunted. The book explores themes of self-esteem, elder abuse, urban mythology, western rites of passage and female fashion. Written as a standalone novel, the book was incorporated into the Scholastic Point Horror brand and received newfound attention in the 2020s, as 'Tor Books' posted a modern analysis of it and discussion of a potential film adaptation of the book arose in March 2022.
Plot
Robin is a dancer and high school student from a working-class background, caring for elderly Rowena, who owns a lacy, cream-coloured prom dress stowed away in her house. Robin is refused the dress by Rowena, but she decides to steal it from the old lady, wearing it to her own upcoming prom in the hopes of impressing her boyfriend. Despite the dress being a rather conservative, high-necked Victorian piece that is out of style, Robin feels drawn to it by some inexplicable force. Robin is unaware that the dress was taken from the deceased corpse of a girl in a funeral home, and while dancing, she begins to sweat profusely, becoming dizzy due to acute effects caused by the formaldehyde dousing the dress. She falls and crushes her feet, meaning that she may never dance again, which will cause her to lose a coveted scholarship to college. The dress is revealed to be cursed by its original wearer. A nurse named Felicia, examining Robin, is drawn to the prom dress, and later smuggles it away and tries to wear it herself, hoping to impress her boyfriend Mark, a divinity student. The dress has the opposite effect of evoking piety, instead causing Felicia to feel bizarrely like the dress is getting tighter and making her look slutty. She steals some jewellery without even realizing that she has done it, and realizes that the dress is making her lose her piety. The dress then goes to Nicole, a high school student and super-achiever on the school's academic decathlon team; Nicole believes herself to look homely and nerdy, and trying on the prom dress makes her feel beautiful. She hopes to sexually attract her adult decathlon coach, lecherous Steve Waring, at a team reception party, which ultimately leads to tragedy as well when an Einstein bust falls on her head and knocks her unconscious. Robin's little sister, Gabrielle, eventually discovers the dress to have been manufactured by a cruel woman who has designed it to make the wearer lose everything they ever loved, thus cursing any person who tries it on. Rowena had been trying to hide the dress from future owners by storing it at her house after she spilled acid on her own sister's face in a feud over the dress, disfiguring her for life. The dress is taken by an antiques dealer who hopes to sell it, which will ultimately keep the curse going.
Reception
'Prom Dress' was listed as an important, distinctly feminist thriller novel of the 1980s in Matt Cardin's 'Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories that Speak to Our Deepest Fears'. SYFY's Emma Fraser called 'Prom Dress' "a sinister twist on 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'; instead of jeans that look great on everyone, this fancy frock had deadly intentions."
Film adaptation
In March 2022, Stampede Development optioned film and TV rights of 'Prom Dress'.
References
Category:1989 novels
Category:American young adult novels
Category:Fiction about curses
Category:Ghost novels
Category:Novels set in the 1980s
Category:Supernatural novels
Category:Books about the paranormal
Category:Theft in fiction
Category:Works about old age
Category:Proms in fiction
Category:Scholastic Corporation books
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