S.E. Hinton
1 book analyzed
Biography
Susan Eloise Hinton was born in 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She began writing The Outsiders at 15, after becoming frustrated that the teen fiction available to her had no relationship to the Tulsa she actually lived in — it was all beach parties and proms. She finished the manuscript at 16. Her agent advised her to use initials rather than her full name so male readers wouldn't dismiss the book. S.E. Hinton was published at 17 years old. The book's dedication — 'To every kid who ever felt like an outsider' — was added later. The novel's accuracy about gang culture, class violence, and teenage psychology came from observation: Hinton grew up knowing kids on both sides of the greaser-Soc divide, and several details (the church, the rumble locations) are drawn from real Tulsa geography. The act of writing the book caused a depression — she had poured everything she had into it and suddenly had nothing to do. Her then-boyfriend (later husband) David Inhofe made her write two pages a day to finish what became her second novel, That Was Then, This Is Now.