The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel written by a teenager, S. E. Hinton, and first published in 1967. An instant, surprise bestseller, today it remains a cult classic. Hinton wrote it at age 15 as a sophomore at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma –  describing the life of a bunch of downtrodden “Greasers” – patterned after 1960s Tulsa hard-working, cigarette-smoking, low-income kids, scorned by the idle, bored, rich southside teens -- the Socs (“soshes”). I first read the book in 1970 as a junior at Tulsa’s working class East Central High School. Although we were sure the Greasers had been patterned after westside Webster High School kids and not us – we, teens with nicknames such as Teddy Bear, Pistol and Squirrel devoured the book, agreeing totally with the injustice of rich vs. poor as Hinton described the tragic melodrama of Ponyboy, Two-Bit and Sodapop’s struggle with life’s inequities. Francis Ford Coppola of The Godfather fame came to Tulsa in 1983 to create the film adaptation – which has its own cult status today, watched by high school English classes reading the book … as they are inspired to tell their own stories just like Susan Eloise Hinton did so successfully at their age.

~ Rob Kerby

Purchase "The Outsiders" here.