Susan Eloise Hinton

Often considered the most successful novelist for the junior high and high school audience, S. E. Hinton (born 1950) is credited with creating the genre of realistic young adult literature with the publication of her first book, The Outsiders (1967), at the age of seventeen.

Although not a prolific author, S. E. Hinton is acclaimed for writing powerful and insightful fiction about adolescent males in hostile social environments. Her works are often acknowledged for their authenticity, candor, and appeal to young adults, especially teenage boys. Although her books include topical elements such as gang violence and drug abuse, Hinton focuses more on character and theme, an attribute praised for contributing to the universality of her works.

As a teenager in Tulsa, Oklahoma, S. E. Hinton enjoyed reading but often found her options limited: "A lot of adult literature was older than I was ready for. The kids' books were all Mary Jane-Goes-to-the-Prom junk. I wrote The Outsiders so I'd have something to read." Based on events that occurred in her high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the novel describes the rivalry between two gangs, the lower-middle-class greasers and the upper-class Socs (for Socials), a conflict that leads to the deaths of members of both gangs. Narrated by fourteen-year-old Ponyboy, a sensitive, orphaned greaser who tells the story in retrospect, The Outsiders explores the camaraderie, loyalty, and affection that lie behind the gang mystique while pointing out both the likenesses in the feelings of the opposing groups and the futility of gang violence; through his encounters with death, Ponyboy learns that he does not have to remain an outsider. Initially regarded as controversial for its unflinching portrayal of disaffected youth, the novel is now recognized as a classic of juvenile literature as well as a unique accomplishment for so young a writer.

The Outsiders was a major success among teenagers, selling more than four million copies in the United States. The book's popularity enabled Hinton to attend the University of Tulsa, where in 1970 she earned an education degree and met her future husband, David Inhofe. However, being catapulted into fame and fortune at eighteen was not without problems; Hinton had a writer's block for several years. "I couldn't even write a letter. All these people were going, `Oh, look at this teenage writer' and you think, God, they're expecting a masterpiece and I haven't got a masterpiece."

Eventually, however, Hinton produced a second novel, That Was Then, This Is Now (1971), a tale of two foster brothers, Bryon and Mark, who are moving apart; as one becomes more involved in school and girlfriends, the other moves deeper into a career of crime and drugs. In Rumble Fish (1975), Hinton continued exploring the themes of gang violence and growing up in the story of a disillusioned young man who, in a struggle to acquire a tough reputation, gradually loses everything meaningful to him. Hinton's next book, Tex (1979), which follows two brothers left in each other's care by their rambling father, likewise investigates how delinquent youths try to make it in a world shaped by protest, drugs, violence, and family disruption. Taming the Star Runner (1988) tells of a fifteen-year-old's self-discovery during a summer spent on his uncle's horse ranch.

In each of her books, Hinton depicts the survival and maturation of her adolescent male protagonists, tough yet tender lower-class boys who live in and around Tulsa and who grow by making difficult decisions. Using a prose style noted initially for its urgency but more recently for its more controlled, mature quality, Hinton addresses such themes as appearance versus reality, the need to be loved and to belong, the meaning of honor, and the limits of friendship. Underlying Hinton's works is her depiction of society as a claustrophobic and often fatal environment that contributes to the fear and hostility felt by her characters. Although she has been accused of sexism for inadequately developing several of the young women in her books, Hinton is often praised for the overall superiority of her characterizations and for her sensitivity toward the feelings and needs of the young. She has also written the screenplay for the feature film version of Rumble Fish with Francis Ford Coppola. In 1988, Hinton received the first Young Adult Services Division/ School Library Journal Author Award from the American Library Association.

As a teenager in Tulsa, Oklahoma, S. E. Hinton enjoyed reading but often found her options limited, as she told Newsweek's Gene Lyons: "A lot of adult literature was older than I was ready for. The kids' books were all Mary Jane-Goes-to-the-Prom junk. I wrote `The Outsiders' so I'd have something to read." Angered by the random beating of a friend, Hinton was inspired to write a story of an escalating class conflict between "greasers" and "socs" that ends in tragedy. Published in 1967 when Hinton was seventeen, The Outsiders "gave birth to the new realism in adolescent literature" and launched its author toward achieving "almost mythical status as the grand dame of young adult novelists," Patty Campbell relates in the New York Times Book Review. Hinton's frank depiction of the cruelty and violence that teens can perpetrate upon one another was a new development in books for adolescents, and led some adult critics to condemn the novel's realism. Teenagers, however, responded overwhelmingly to the book and Hinton became an overnight success.

The Outsiders opens with a group of "greasers" preparing for one of their habitual fights with their upper-middle-class rivals, the "socs"; with their parents indifferent or absent, the boys, including narrator Ponyboy Curtis, substitute their gang for family. But when one of Ponyboy's friends kills a soc in self-defense, it sets off a chain of events that eventually tears the group apart. "By almost any standard," writes Thomas Fleming in the New York Times Book Review, "Miss Hinton's performance is impressive.... 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." Saturday Review critic Zena Sutherland similarly observes that The Outsiders is "written with distinctive style by a teen-ager who is sensitive, honest, and observant." A Times Literary Supplement reviewer, however, notes that "the plot creaks and the ending is wholly factitious," and remarks that the language "is both arresting and tiring to read in its repetitiousness." While likewise faulting the author for unlikely plot twists and occasional overwriting, Lillian N. Gerhardt nevertheless comments in School Library Journal that Hinton is a writer "seeing and saying more with greater storytelling ability than many an older hand."

"For all its weaknesses, this young writer's first novel The Outsiders made a considerable impact and offered an uncomfortable glimpse into the world of teenage violence in America," David L. Rees states in Children's Book Review. "We are still in that world, but here," in That Was Then, This Is Now, "it is even more strikingly drawn," says Rees. Instead of a conflict between rich and poor teens, That Was Then, This Is Now presents two foster brothers, Bryon and Mark, moving apart as one becomes more involved in school and girlfriends while the other moves deeper into a career of crime and drugs. "The phrase `if only' is perhaps the most bittersweet in the language, and Miss Hinton uses it skillfully to underline her theme: growth can be a dangerous process," Michael Cart summarizes in the New York Times Book Review.Book World contributor Polly Goodwin also considers Hinton's novel "a powerful story, which pulls no punches in portraying a way of life its protagonists casually accept as normal," although she feels that Bryon's eventual decision to turn his friend in to the police is not very believable. Cart similarly faults the author for portraying Bryon's decisions as "made not intellectually but emotionally," but states that "otherwise she has written a mature, disciplined novel, which excites a response in the reader. Whatever its faults, her book will be hard to forget." " That Was Then, This Is Now is a searing and terrible account of what life can be like [for teens]," a Times Literary Supplement writer comments, concluding that the novel is "a starkly realistic book, a punch from the shoulder which leaves the reader considerably shaken."

While Hinton's next novel, Rumble Fish, demonstrates her usual aptitude for memorable dialogue and fast-paced narrative, many critics feel that this story of a disillusioned young man who gradually loses everything meaningful to him does not match the quality of her previous work. In Tex, however, Hinton "has taken a larger canvas on which to group more varied characters," asserts Margery Fisher of Growing Point. The author moves her setting from Tulsa to California to explore the relationship of fourteen-year-old Tex and his older brother Mason, who must take the place of the boys' traveling cowboy father. Resentful of his brother's authority at home and having difficulties at school, Tex's problems multiply when he and Mason are kidnapped by a hitchhiker; Tex later gets into a confrontation with a drug pusher. New York Times Book Review contributor Paxton Davis believes that the number of unusual events occurring in the story strains credulity: "There's too much going on here. Even by the standards of today's fiction, S. E. Hinton's vision of contemporary teen-age life is riper than warrants belief.... [ Tex is] busier and more melodramatic than the real life it purports to show." Lance Salway agrees that Tex is very theatrical, but comments in Signal that "a writer as good as Hinton can carry it off effortlessly; one believes implicitly in the characters and cares what happens to them." "In this new book," Fisher concludes, "Susan Hinton has achieved that illusion of reality which any fiction writer aspires to and which few ever completely achieve."

Hinton spent the ten-year interval between Tex and her latest novel, Taming the Star Runner, advising on the sets of several film adaptations of her books and starting a family. But after just "one paragraph [of Taming the Star Runner] the reader is back in familiar Hinton country," notes Campbell. "Once again," a Kirkus Reviews writer observes, "Hinton puts a bright, rebellious teen-ager, stubbornly pushing against society's expectations, into a powerful story lashed together with bands of irony." After nearly killing his stepfather in a fight, young Travis is dispatched to his uncle's farm, where he must adjust to a "country" lifestyle unfamiliar to him. While trying to maintain his tough exterior, Travis is also working on a novel and falling in love with Casey, an older girl who is a riding instructor at the horse ranch. School Library Journal contributor Charlene Strickland considers the plot "sparse" and built "around a predominately bleak theme." Campbell, however, states that Taming the Star Runner "is remarkable for its drive and the wry sweetness and authenticity of its voice." Because the novel "is also a more mature and difficult work," the critic continues, "it may not be as wildly popular as the other Hinton books have continued to be with succeeding generations.... But S. E. Hinton continues to grow in strength as a young adult novelist."

Although Hinton's work has frequently been characterized as representative of teenage life, some critics believe that her novels are more graphic than factual. Michael Malone, for instance, in a Nation essay on the author's work, notes that the language used by Hinton's characters is often "heightened" and poetical; in addition, most of the characters are situated outside their families, thus avoiding the problem of parental authority and conflict. "Far from strikingly realistic in literary form, these novels are romances," the critic explains, "mythologizing the tragic beauty of violent youth." Campbell similarly observes that the typical Hinton novel includes "a tough young Galahad in black T-shirt and leather jacket," but the critic maintains that each variation Hinton creates is distinctive in itself: "The pattern is familiar, but [Hinton's] genius lies in that she has been able to give each of the five protagonists she has drawn from this mythic model a unique voice and a unique story." And as Hinton told Jay Scott of American Film, it is the people, not the circumstances, of her novels that concern her most: "I don't know what the latest hot trend is. I hate the `problem' approach. Problems change. Character remains the same. I write character."

Hinton has not been as prolific as other young adult novelists, but that hasn't prevented her from becoming a consistent favorite with her audience; two of the movies adapted from her books, Tex and The Outsiders, were filmed in response to suggestions from adolescent readers. Even though she is no longer a teenager involved in the world about which she writes, Hinton believes that she is suited to writing adolescent fiction: "I don't think I have a masterpiece in me, but I do know I'm writing well in the area I choose to write in," she commented to Los Angeles Times writer Dave Smith. "I understand kids and I really like them. And I have a very good memory. I remember exactly what it was like to be a teen-ager that nobody listened to or paid attention to or wanted around. I mean, it wasn't like that with my own family, but I knew a lot of kids like that and hung around with them.... Somehow I always understood them. They were my type." And while other young adult novelists have branched out into mainstream fiction, Hinton has no ambitions to write an "adult" best seller, she related to Stephen Farber in the New York Times: "If I can ever find any adults who are as interesting as the kids I like, maybe I'll write about adults some day. The reason I keep writing about teen-agers is that it's a real interesting time of life. It's the time of most rapid change, when ideals are clashing against the walls of compromise." "After all," she told Smith, "I was born and raised in Tulsa, never wanted to live anywhere else and still don't, and never wanted to be anything but a writer."

Associated Works

Historical Context

• The Life and Times of S. E. Hinton (1950-)
• At the time of Hinton's birth:
• Tibet was invaded by Communist Chinese forces
• Pablo Neruda published Canto General
• Television show What's My Line? was popular
• World population reached 2.52 billion
• The times:
• 1930-1960: Modernist Period of American literature
• 1950-1953: Korean War
• 1957-1975: Vietnam War
• 1960-present: Postmodernist Period of American literature
• 1991: Persian Gulf War
• 1992-1996: Civil war in Bosnia
• Hinton's contemporaries:
• Salman Rushdie (1947 - ) Indian author and politician
• David Letterman (1947-) American comic
• Camille Paglia (1947-) American feminist writer
• Gloria Naylor (1950-) American writer
• John Grisham (1955-) American writer
• Kevin Costner (1955-) American actor
• Wendy Wasserstein (1955-) American writer
• Tony Kushner (1956-) American playwright
• Madonna (1958-) American pop singer
• Selected world events:
• 1955: Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was used for first time in U.S.
• 1956: Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird
• 1965: Black activist Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City
• 1973: U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion
• 1980: Cable News Network (CNN) was launched by Ted Turner
• 1984: Britain agreed to return control of Hong Kong to China in 1997
• 1989: Kazuo Ishiguro published The Remains of the Day
• 1991: Soviet Union was officially dissolved

Further Reading

• Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 2, Gale, 1989, pp. 65-76.
• Children's Literature Review, Gale, Volume 3, 1978, Volume 23, 1991.
• Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 30, Gale, 1984.
• Daly, Jay, Presenting S. E. Hinton, Twayne, 1987.
• American Film, April, 1983.
• Book World, May 9, 1971.
• Children's Book Review, December, 1971.