Book dossier

Our Guys

by Bernard Lefkowitz

In the idyllic suburb of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, four of the town's most popular high school athletes were accused of raping a retarded young woman while nine of their teammates watched. Everyone was riveted by the question: What went wrong in this seemingly flawless American town? Lefkowitz's sweeping narrative, informed by more than two hundred interviews and six years of research, recreates a hidden adolescent world that parents didn't - or wouldn't - see: a high school dominated by a band of predatory athletes, a teenage culture in which girls were frequently abused and humiliated at sybaritic and destructive parties, and a town that embraced its celebrity athletes, despite the havoc they created, as "our guys." But this is not just a picture of one suburb. Lefkowitz finds that the unqualified adulation athletes received in Glen Ridge is echoed in communities throughout the nation. Glen Ridge is not an aberration. Parents, teachers, and anyone concerned with how children are raised, how their characters are formed, and how boys and girls learn to treat each other will want to read this important book.