Our Guys
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.65 (717 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0375702695 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 528 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-02-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
What made these boys capable of brutalizing a girl that some of them had known since childhood? Why did so many of their elders deny the rape and rally around its perpetrators? To solve this riddle, the Edgar award-winning author Bernard Lefkowitz conducted years of research and more than two hundred interviews. In March 1989 a group of teenage boys lured a retarded girl into a basement in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, and gang-raped her. And although rumors of the crime quickly spread through the town, weeks passed before anyone saw fit to report it to the police. Glen Ridge was the kind of peaceful, affluent suburb many Americans dream about. The result is not just a wrenching story of crime and punishment, but a hauntingly nuanced portrait of America's jock culture and the hidden world of unrestrained adolescent sexuality.A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Los Angeles Times Prize FinalistAn Edgar Finalist. The rapists were its most popular high school athletes
OhioWolverine said Long read, well worth it.. Yes as some other reviewers mentioned it is a long book. It needs to be in order to dissect the sickness of this community. In addition to the main storyline, the story of "Ryan's Wreck" also made me sick to my stomach. Who thinks it is OKAY to do such things?! This book delves deeply into "privi. "insightful and disturbing analysis of a culture that exists" according to A Customer. I grew up in a community next to Glen Ridge that modeled similar values to those in the book. I left in '67 to join the Peace Corps and my own beliefs that the values portrayed in those seemingly perfect lives were self serving and morally wrong were affirmed by my experiences in the world. I mis. C. I. McCabe said A frightening expose of life in suburbia. This book exposes the dark and frightening underside of a life of supposed tranquility in the lily white and privilged confines of suburbia, and details how "the boys will be boys" mentality led to the awful rape of a retarded girl by high school jocks and how a town that glorified its male, so-s
They were not only Glen Ridge's finest, but in their perfection they belonged to all of us. The young men raped her--with a baseball bat and a broomstick. It's an affluent white community that values propriety, order, discretion, continuity, and a fantasy of the gentleman-athlete. In this vividly detailed book, Bernard Lefkowitz brings us into the daily life of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the hometown of Tom Cruise. They were Our Guys." What's ultimately most shocking about this crime is how ordinary it was, how predictable--how in one way or another it's happening now, all across America. When they invited her down into the basement rec room of a suburban home, she jumped with joy at being included. Lefkowitz writes of the boys who raped Leslie: "'These Glen Ridge kids, they were pure gold, every mother's dream, every father's pride. Leslie, a sweet-natured young woman with the mental age of an 8-year-old, just wanted to be friends with the high school football stars.