Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb Book

The All-American high-school football team in an All-American affluent Jersey suburb conspire to sweet-talk, seduce, and violate a mentally impaired young teen-aged girl from their school. It only took a little poking for journalist Bernard Lefkowitz to discover that this classy Jersey suburb had (has?) a high school that harbored almost a "redneck" veneration of its football team -- and had reason to hush up its atrocity in abusing a young adoring girl.

Yes, it's heinous, but finding out what happened (and what almost didn't) is the heart of this well-researched and well-written book. Without giving its events away, I'll say that OUR GUYS demonstrates that the ability to INTERPRET a situation is in most respects more important than the ability to SOLVE it. Those who read it will find OUR GUYS occasionally rough sledding because of its sordid subject matter, but ultimately thought-provoking and worthwhile. This insightful work speaks volumes about class expectations in America, mainstreaming, and the way high schoolers like to segregate themselves into dissident cliques. After re-reading it recently, it occurred to me that although it has been over twenty years since the book's original publication (1998), OUR GUYS remains crucial still.



Not the pleasantest reading, but necessary and thought-provoking.