I recently read "The Basic Eight" by San Francisco author Daniel
Handler.  The book is a journal style story about a sophisticated
teenaged clique that commits (and covers up) a murder.  I have since
read references to the fact that this book was based on an actual
event that took place at San Francisco's Lowell high school.  My
question is: is their any evidence to suggest this book was based on a
real event (in the way of news articles, etc)?  I would be very
interested in any information on the "real" event, if such an event
took place.  Thank You.

Dear Looking 2 You, 

There is no evidence that Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, based
his 1999 debut novel on a real story, although it should be mentioned
the he is an alumni of Lowell Highschool and the school in the novel
resembles Lowell.

The unofficial (but very comprehensive) fan site does not mention such
a rumour either:
http://www.unfortunateevents.net/index.shtml 
As well as an article about Handler/Snicket in Salon magazine: 
www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/08/17/snicket/ (see first page of the
article).

I hope that helped, although probably a but dissapointing :-) 

I also add my search terms: 
"The Basic Eight" Lowell high school 
"The Basic Eight" "real story" (yielded nothing)

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 09 Jul 2002 01:50 PDT

Another small and unrelated thing: 
Lowell high-school was in the midst of racial debate, as you can see
from hate-sites like this
http://www.stormfront.org/whitenat/racism.htm (search the page for
"lowell"). Maybe that gave push to the rumours.

See another search term: 
race murder "Lowell high school"

i was a little dissapointed in the answer i received.  given the
search terms used, i felt the search was not very thorough.  in fact,
i felt that the comment by xemion-ga was at least more complete than
my official answer.  however, perhaps i should have been more clear as
to what i wanted and offered more money to do the kind of search i was
hoping for.

This amazon review claims that it is, but I couldn't find any more
details than what the review said.

"An adult young-adult first novel set in a San Francisco high school.
Based on an actual California murder and already optioned by the
producer of As Good As It Gets, the story centers on a high school
clique, The Basic Eight."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312253737/qid=1026200418/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-2037765-7019830

xemion-ga