Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb (Volume 4) (Men and Masculinity) - Hardcover

Lefkowitz, Bernard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520205960 ISBN 13: 9780520205963

Publisher: University of California Press, 1997

Synopsis

It was a crime that captured national attention. 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? In search of the answer, Bernard Lefkowitz takes the reader behind Glen Ridge's manicured facade into the shadowy basement that was the scene of the rape, into the mansions on "Millionaire's Row," into the All-American high school, and finally into the courtroom where justice itself was on trial.

Lefkowitz's sweeping narrative, informed by more than 200 interviews and six years of research, recreates a murky adolescent world that parents didn't―or wouldn't―see: a high school dominated by a band of predatory athletes; a teenage culture where girls were frequently abused and humiliated at sybaritic and destructive parties, and a town that continued to embrace its celebrity athletes―despite the havoc they created―as "our guys." But that was not only true of Glen Ridge; Lefkowitz found that the unqualified adulation the athletes received in their town was echoed in communities throughout the nation. Glen Ridge was not an aberration. The clash of cultures and values that divided Glen Ridge, Lefkowitz writes, still divides the country.

Parents, teachers, and anyone concerned with how children are raised, how their characters are formed, how boys and girls learn to treat each other, will want to read this important book.

About this title

About the Author

Bernard Lefkowitz, an Edgar award-winning author, has written three earlier books on social issues, including Tough Change: Growing Up on Your Own in America (1987). He teaches journalism at Columbia University.

From the Back Cover

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Prize Finalist
An Edgar Award Finalist

"In this gripping book, Lefkowitz takes one single event—the brutal sexual assault on a slightly retarded young woman by several high profile high school athletes in suburban New Jersey—and brings his readers face to face with the smug arrogance of predatory male sexual entitlement. And he does it not with a sweeping analysis but with a novelist's eye for precise detail, a tightly wound tale, elegantly told."—Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America

"Lefkowitz provides a graphic, faithful account of an amazing case—amazing because of the community's reaction to 'our guys' and the suspiciously drawn-out trial. Its true-crime approach could make Our Guys a bestseller."—Peggy Sanday, author of A Woman Scored: Acquaintance Rape on Trial

From the Inside Flap

"In this gripping book, Lefkowitz takes one single event—the brutal sexual assault on a slightly retarded young woman by several high profile high school athletes in suburban New Jersey—and brings his readers face to face with the smug arrogance of predatory male sexual entitlement. And he does it not with a sweeping analysis but with a novelist's eye for precise detail, a tightly wound tale, elegantly told."—Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America

"Lefkowitz provides a graphic, faithful account of an amazing case—amazing because of the community's reaction to 'our guys' and the suspiciously drawn-out trial. Its true-crime approach could make Our Guys a bestseller."—Peggy Sanday, author of A Woman Scored: Acquaintance Rape on Trial

Reviews

A scathing indictment of the seemingly paradisiacal town of Glen Ridge, N.J., which bred the young men who brutally raped a retarded teenager--and have yet to pay the price for it. Edgar-winning author Lefkowitz (Tough Change: Growing Up on Your Own In America, 1987, etc.) began his research by attending the graduation ceremonies of Glen Ridge's class of 1989, which included four young men who had recently been arrested on rape charges. At post-graduation parties the men were greeted, according to Lefkowitz, ``like returning warriors . . . martyred heros.'' Not present was the young woman, known to her many of her violators since kindergarten. She had been lured into a basement where, among other acts of violence, a baseball bat was inserted into her vagina. Although only four men were ultimately tried for the crime, at least nine others were present during some part of the assault. The girl, threatened with retaliation if she told, was slow to reveal the story. It was three months before it began to leak out to authorities. Lefkowitz wondered why and has put together a frightening story of an insular and prosperous town that honored achievement-- including the achievement of its successful adolescent male athletes--above almost everything. Adolescent women were considered inferior and, more particularly, as rewards reserved by right for the football stars. The Glen Ridge rapists, who already had a long history of aberrant behavior (including masturbating in class), were just such stars, and the town rallied blindly to support and protect them, first by denying that the crime had happened and then by circulating a blame-the- victim, boys-will-be-boys defense. The young men who were convicted of rape are still free on bail pending an appeal. A shocking and horrifying example of cultural dysfunction that, the author asserts, is not limited to Glen Ridge. (25 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Curiosity, says journalist Lefkowitz (Tough Change: Growing Up on Your Own in America, Free Pr., 1987), brought him to investigate the web of circumstances contributing to the 1989 alleged gang rape by teenage jocks of a 17-year-old retarded girl in a seemingly image-perfect New Jersey town. The theme of this compelling narrative is disturbing?the difficulty of achieving gender justice compounded by the fact that the socially isolated young woman chose compliance in the naive hope of acceptance, and a set of community values that put young male athletes on pedestals, their various "transgressions" ignored or dismissed. Glen Ridge is probably not an atypical community. Parents, teachers, and others need to understand what Lefkowitz so capably exposes about the "All-American" male cultural setting. Highly recommended for a broad readership.?Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

They were always the popular guys in high school: the jocks. And even though their football team was lackluster and their grades were average, at best, they were still the clique that "ran" the school. Sure, they had occasional run-ins with the police, but in the affluent town of Glen Ridge, it was understood that boys would be boys. Their parents always paid the damages, and the affairs were kept politely quiet. When 13 of these young men were accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled girl, the town rallied behind them and did its best to ostracize the girl. It is a case that is still generating headlines today, and Lefkowitz has written a compelling account of the incident and the resulting trials. He examines a part of American culture that appears to condone wildness and aggression in its young males and passive servitude in the females. Our Guys is an insightful work that could be as fundamentally important, and as widely read, as Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia (1994). Highly recommended. Eric Robbins

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520205960
• ISBN 13: 9780520205963
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 428