Author Sam Miller posted his list of the “top 10 books about the darker side of adolescence” in the Guardian. His number one choice was “Lord of The Flies,” by William Golding, which I would have to concur is a classic. His number two pick was “The Outsiders” by SE Hinton. SE Hinton is one of three authors on the list not to disclose a first name (the others being DBC Pierre and JD Salinger), from which you might (in this case) correctly deduce that SE Hinton is female, but she and/or her publishers understood that males, and maybe all potential readers, would be more inclined to read a book by a gender neutral author than by one named Susan Eloise Hinton. The Outsiders is the only book written by a woman on Miller’s list, and it featured a male narrator.
I remember reading A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, which possibly was a list contender, as well as some of the books on Miller’s list as a teen, and I enjoyed them, but the books that made the biggest impression on me were tomes like I Want To Keep My Baby by Joanna Lee, The Girls of Huntington House by Blossom Elfman, Bonnie Jo Go Home by Jeanette Eyerly, and It’s Not What You Expect, by Norma Klein; all about relationships, with a special emphasis on the perils of teen sex. They weren’t great literature, particularly, but they spoke to my life in a way books like A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (another of Miller’s top ten) just couldn’t, in part because the protagonists were female. So I guess I tend, in one sense, to illustrate David Brooks’ recent assertion that boys and girls are drawn to different books. On the other hand, works like Lord of the Flies and Catcher in the Rye were assigned by teachers, while the pulpy teen angst paperbacks I secreted within my math textbooks to read most assuredly were not, and neither were very many “classic” novels by women authors. Other than The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, I can’t remember any.
Cross-posted at Sivacracy.net.
–Ann Bartow
Not exactly a “classic” adolescent read, since I read it as an adult, but one of the most painful books I have read about adolescence was Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood.
Anyone who lived through excruciating emotional girl-bullying will cringe.
I’ll have to check it out! I wonder if it ever gets assigned in high schools.
There are quite a few books along those lines, but not many that are intended specifically for adolescents. There’s Foxfire, by Joyce Carol Oates, and Two Girls, Fat and Thin, by Mary Gaitskill, which is one of the most intensely real books about gender roles and bullying that I’ve ever read. In fact, it’s so real that it’s depressing – but, then, “so real that it’s depressing” is a pretty good description of anything by Gaitskill.
I’m disappointed (though not really surprised) that the list didn’t mention Francesca Lia Block. She writes novels for and about teens, which address some really dark, complex issues – sexuality, anorexia, parental abuse, recreational drugs – with great sophistication and sensitivity. I’d check out Dangerous Angels, a compilation of her “Weetzie Bat” books, and The Hanged Man, which is probably her darkest work (and one of the hardest to locate). Her prose is so gorgeous that I think even adults can appreciate her work.
It was a very boy-centric list, absolutely. Thanks for the reccomendations!