Our guys : the Glen Ridge rape and the secret life of the perfect suburb / Bernard Lefkowitz.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

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 naïve 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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

In 1989, four "jocks" in suburban Glen Ridge, N.J., were accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl whom the school system had classified as "educable mentally retarded." This was no ordinary gang rape. The assault consisted of inserting a broomstick, a baseball bat and another stick into her vagina while nine teammates watched. In this important book, Edgar Award-winner Lefkowitz emphasizes that the event was neither isolated nor spontaneous but merely the most vile and extreme in a career of sexual abuse, sexual harassment and vicious property destruction perpetrated by the admired, pampered clique of athletes as they progressed through Glen Ridge's school system. Readers may have mixed feelings about Our Guys: How does one react to a well-researched, finely crafted and much needed book that concerns young men behaving in almost unimaginably inhumane ways toward young women? The book has no heroes; only villains, victims and the indifferent populate its pages. In this case, don't blame the messenger. Lefkowitz has done what national publicity and press coverage couldn't. In clear, reasoned prose he unravels the social context necessary for understanding horror in a "perfect suburb." His six years of research and more than 200 interviews support charges of repeated failure by athletes, parents, educators and the criminal justice system. In the end he indicts us all: "If a culture is measured by how it treats its weakest members, the Glen Ridge case, first to last, revealed American culture at its basest." Photos. First serial to Ladies' Home Journal. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Lefkowitz's book is an intense study of the sexual assault of a mentally retarded 17-year-old girl by four of the most popular boys in her high school in a New Jersey community while many of their friends watched. The book is strengthened by numerous quotations from the 150 interviews conducted by the author over an extended period of time. Lefkowitz also includes citations from the various records created as the case progressed through the justice system. The first half of the book addresses the assault and the second the justice process. Lefkowitz, a professor of journalism, has written similar works in the past. He immersed himself in the community to gain perspective as he gathered his interview data. Journalistic in style, the book is well written and very readable with an acceptable index and limited notes. General readers. R. T. Sigler; University of Alabama

Booklist Review

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

Kirkus Book Review

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 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 hjappened 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)