Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hinton, S(usan) E(loise) - Thomas Fleming

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THOMAS FLEMING

Can sincerity overcome clichés? In ["The Outsiders"], by a now 17-year-old author, it almost does the trick. By almost any standard, Miss Hinton's performance is impressive. At an age when most youngsters are still writing 300-word compositions, she has produced a book alive with the fresh dialogue of her contemporaries, and has wound around it a story that captures, in vivid patches at least, a rather unnerving slice of teen-age America.

"The Outsiders" is told in the first person by 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis—a "greaser" or lower class kid who slicks his hair and slouches around in T-shirts and jeans. Arch rivals of the Greasers are the Socs—short for Socials, kids with Madras shirts and Mustangs. Apparently in Tulsa, where Miss Hinton sets her story, the poor guys don't beat up the rich guys. It works the other way around—and she uses this switch to build up quite a head of self-pitying steam for her hero and his friends. (pp. 10,...

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1. Introduction
2. Lillian N. Gerhardt
3. Thomas Fleming
4. William Jay Jacobs
5. A. Chambers
6. Sheryl B. Andrews
7. Michael Cart
8. The Times Literary Supplement
9. John Rowe Townsend
10. Jane Abramson
11. Anita Silvey
12. Robert Berkvist
13. Dorothy Nimmo
14. The Council On Interracial Books For Children
15. Paxton Davis
16. Margery Fisher
17. Lance Salway
18. Susan Thompson
19. Copyright

1. S. E. Hinton