Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(novel)

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S. E. Hinton published in 1967 by Viking Press. The book details the conflict between two rival gangs of White Americans divided by their socioeconomic status: the working-class “Greasers” and the upper-middle-class “Socs” (pronounced /ˈsoʊʃɪz/ SOH-shiz—short for Socials). The story is told in first-person perspective by teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis, and takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1965,[1] although this is never explicitly stated in the book.

Hinton began writing the novel when she was 15 and wrote the bulk of it when she was 16 and a junior in high school.[2] She was 18 when the book was published.

Source: The Outsiders (novel) – Wikipedia

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I was reminded of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders recently … I cannot remember exactly when I first read The Outsiders, but I am pretty sure it was at high school.

All I remember was the two gangs, the Socs and Greasers. It was interesting revisiting this after reading Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange and Jack Charles’ discussion of violence growing up in the 60’s:

I remember one particular evening, I saw a bunch of kids getting off the train at Blackburn station, joining the masses in the village. The numbers kept growing. The air was thick with tension and testosterone. The boys were all ribbing each other and carrying on, and it got quite intense. People started tearing palings off nearby shops, using other bits of wood and grabbing iron bars and just going at each other. It was like something out of a movie. I legged it out of there quick smart, before anyone could clock me.

Source: Jack Charles – Born-Again Blakfella by Jack Charles

However, what surprised me in returning to the text was constant presence of smoking:

Johnny had been smoking since he was nine; Steve started at eleven. So no one thought it unusual when I started. I was the weed-fiend in my family—Soda smokes only to steady his nerves or when he wants to look tough.

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

And

I was sitting there, smoking a cigarette, when Jerry came back in from making a phone call. He stared at me for a second. “You shouldn’t be smoking.”
I was startled. “How come?” I looked at my cigarette. It looked okay to me. I looked around for a “No Smoking” sign and couldn’t find one. “How come?”
“Why, uh,” Jerry stammered, “uh, you’re too young.”

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

And

“Wanna smoke?” I offered him a weed, but he shookhis head. “No, thanks. Uh, Ponyboy, one reason I came here was to see if you were okay, but you—we—got to go see the judge tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I know. Hey, holler if you see one of my brothers coming. I’ll catch it for smoking in bed.”

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

And

First Randy was questioned. He looked a little nervous, and I wished they’d let him have a cigarette. I wished they’d let me have a cigarette; I was more than a little shaky myself.

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

This is something that I noticed in my recent rereading of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye too. Other than wondering who was actually providing all these cigarettes’ (maybe they were cheaper in the past?) I was left wondering when cigarettes stopped being present in texts, moved to the margins? I cannot remember cigarettes’ in John Marsden’s Tomorrow series (checking, the only reference is Chris collecting grog and cigarettes when they were scavenging), but I am left wondering if it is just something that I am more aware of these days as cigarettes in society have changed, especially in teen books?

MarginaliaChapter 6

Johnny had been smoking since he was nine; Steve started at eleven. So no one thought it unusual when I started. I was the weed-fiend in my family—Soda smokes only to steady his nerves or when he wants to look tough.

Chapter 11

“Wanna smoke?” I offered him a weed, but he shookhis head. “No, thanks. Uh, Ponyboy, one reason I came here was to see if you were okay, but you—we—got to go see the judge tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I know. Hey, holler if you see one of my brothers coming. I’ll catch it for smoking in bed.”

Chapter 12

First Randy was questioned. He looked a little nervous, and I wished they’d let him have a cigarette. I wished they’d let me have a cigarette; I was more than a little shaky myself.

speaking with S. E. Hinton …

Writing is easy for me because I never begin to write unless I have something to say. I’m a character writer. Some writers are plot writers… I have to begin with people. I always know my characters, exactly what they look like, their birthdays, what they like for breakfast. It doesn’t matter if these things appear in the book. I still have to know. I get ideas for characters from real people, but overall they are fictional; my characters exist only in my head.

Every teenager feels that adults have no idea what’s going on. That’s exactly the way I felt when I wrote The Outsiders. Even today, the concept of the in-group and the out-group remains the same. The kids say, “Okay, this is like the Preppies and the Punks,” or whatever they callthemselves. The uniforms change, and the names of the groups change, but kids really grasp how similar their situations are to Ponyboy’s.

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