Susan Eloise Hinton, better known as S. E. to her hordes of fans, was the writer who had the greatest impact on me during my high school years. I first read That Was Then, This Is Now in eigth grade because I liked the font on the cover (yes, I've always been one to judge books by their covers). It was okay. The next year, I read Outsiders, not knowing it was a prequel to That Was Then, This is Now, and that got me hooked. I remember reading it straight through in one sitting. I started crying off and on right brom the start, but then about halfway through, hot tears started streaming down my face and didn't stop until some time after I'd finished the book. In rapid-fire succession I devoured Rumble Fish and Tex, with Tex affecting me the same way Outsiders had.
My senior year, I discovered that the main branch of the city library had Taming the Star Runner. I convinced my parents to take a special trip downtown to the main branch, a place I'd rarely been to. It matched Outsiders and Tex, which I didn't expect since it is so much more rural. Recently, Hinton has begun writing for adults and Hawkes' Harbor is near the top of my summer reading list this year.
I've often wondered why she is known as S. E. In high school, I thought those were her names, like the S. in Harry Truman. I always intuitively knew she was a woman when I read her books, but thinking back I wonder if, since her subject matter was stereotypically boys' stuff if she wasn't pressured to do so just so no one thought her books were for sissies. When I was a tweenage boy, I don't know if anyone understood me better.
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