House of Burgess

Though no one wants to admit it sometimes, the completely invented, made-for-television band The Monkees had arguably some finest pop songs of the 60's. This has everything to do with the fact that they had some of the most talented songwriters in the business including: Neil Diamond, Carole King and Harry Nilsson, among others.
I bring this up because I just found out that one of my current favorite authors, Tom Perrotta ("Election", "Little Children", "The Wishbones"), once ghost-wrote (no pun intended) a young adult horror novel entitled "The Thrill Club" for an author I read obsessively when I was in Junior High, R.L. Stine ("The Haunted Car", "The Haunted Mask", "The Haunted Mask 2", "The Haunted School", "The Haunting Hour").
When people recall with fondness books they loved in their childhood, I'm often dismissed when I bring up the sheer brilliance of R.L. Stine, at least to the 12-year-old version of myself. I'm still considering whether this new information will be enough to revisit this title, or any other Stine works, even his lone admittedly embarrasing forray into "adult" novels. Sometimes things we loved in the past might do better to simply live in our memories if they have any hope of keeping their beloved status.