The Outsiders
Greasers versus Socs. Poor side versus rich side. Everyone young and none of them sure why they are fighting.
Stay Gold
S.E. Hinton's 1967 debut follows Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen-year-old greaser from Tulsa's East Side who loves sunsets, books, and his gang of friends who are the only family most of them have. When a confrontation with the rival Soc gang results in a death, Ponyboy and his friend Johnny are forced to run. The novel examines class, loyalty, and the violence that fills the space where belonging should be, with an honesty that no adult writer of the time was willing to put on the page for teenagers.
Reading The Outsiders
Loyalty
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Chapter
"Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.
"S.E. Hinton
Hinton began writing The Outsiders at fifteen and published it at seventeen. She used initials instead of her first name Susan on the publisher's advice, as it was assumed young male readers would not relate to a female author writing about gangs.
Francis Ford Coppola directed the 1983 film adaptation featuring a remarkable ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and a young Diane Lane.