A short life of the author
Susan Eloise Hinton (born 22 July 1948) is an American novelist who published The Outsiders in 1967, at the age of seventeen, and in doing so created the modern young adult novel. Before Hinton, adolescent fiction was largely about proms, school, and wholesome family life; The Outsiders — raw, violent, emotional, and written from the perspective of teenagers who felt genuinely endangered — showed that fiction for young people could engage with class conflict, poverty, violence, and death with the same seriousness as adult literature. The book has sold over fifteen million copies and remains one of the most widely read American novels.
Life
Hinton was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she attended Will Rogers High School. She began writing The Outsiders at fifteen, after a friend was beaten up by a group of wealthier students. The novel was published by Viking Press during her freshman year at the University of Tulsa. She used her initials rather than her first name because her publisher feared that readers would not accept a novel about gang violence written by a woman.
After The Outsiders, Hinton experienced severe writer’s block. Her then-boyfriend (later husband), David Inhofe, required her to write two pages a day, and the result was That Was Then, This Is Now (1971). She continued to publish young adult novels through the 1970s and 1980s but has written very little since. She has lived in Tulsa her entire life.
The Outsiders (1967)
The novel is narrated by Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen-year-old “greaser” — a working-class kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Tulsa — who lives with his two older brothers after their parents’ death. The greasers are in perpetual conflict with the “Socs” (short for Socials), the wealthy kids who drive Mustangs and beat up greasers for entertainment. The novel’s central event is a fight in which Ponyboy’s friend Johnny kills a Soc in self-defense, and the two boys go on the run.
The novel’s power lies in its emotional authenticity. Hinton wrote it as a teenager, and the voice — urgent, sentimental, tough, and tender — sounds like a real adolescent rather than an adult’s idea of one. The famous line “Stay gold, Ponyboy” (drawn from Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”) has become one of the most quoted phrases in American young adult literature.
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation — starring C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Diane Lane — was a commercial success and became a cultural touchstone for 1980s youth culture. Coppola also adapted Rumble Fish (1983) and Tex (1982).
Subsequent Novels
That Was Then, This Is Now (1971) follows two foster brothers whose friendship is destroyed by drugs and diverging paths. Rumble Fish (1975) — Hinton’s most formally ambitious novel — follows Rusty-James and his legendary older brother, the Motorcycle Boy, through a stylised, almost mythic landscape of street violence. Coppola’s black-and-white film adaptation, with Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke, is an art film disguised as a teen movie.
Tex (1979) follows two brothers living on their own in rural Oklahoma. Taming the Star Runner (1988) — Hinton’s last novel — follows a delinquent teenager sent to live with his uncle on a horse ranch.
Critical Standing
Hinton is the most important author in the history of young adult literature. The Outsiders is the founding text of the genre as we know it — the novel that proved young adult fiction could be serious, dark, and honest. Every subsequent YA author, from Judy Blume to John Green, works in the space that Hinton opened. The book is assigned in middle and high schools throughout the United States and remains one of the most frequently challenged books in American libraries.
Collecting Hinton
The Outsiders (1967, Viking) in first edition with dust jacket is one of the most valuable modern young adult first editions, bringing $3,000–$15,000. That Was Then, This Is Now (1971) brings $100–$300. Rumble Fish (1975) brings $50–$200.