Ponyboy can count on his brothers. And on his friends. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up "greasers" like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far. Susan Eloise Hinton's acclaimed first novel, The Outsiders, was originally published in 1967 when she was a freshman in college and is as powerful now as it was then. She wrote it in response to a "greaser" friend of hers getting beaten up by a gang of "socs" and all the characters she says are "loosely based" on the people she knew growing up. Jim Fyfe has appeared on Broadway in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues as well as numerous Off-Broadway and regional theaters.

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Excerpted from The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
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