S. E. Hinton
American writer (born 1948)
- 4 min read
- 4 chapters
Explore on Lably
ToursExplore Lably’s 3D toursIn 1988, she received the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her cumulative contribution in writing for teens.
Early life
Susan Eloise Hinton was born on July 22, 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her father, Grady, was a door-to-door salesman, and her mother, Lillian, was a factory worker. Lillian was physically and emotionally abusive, throwing one of Hinton's early manuscripts in a trash burner (though she allowed her to rescue them), and Hinton described Grady as "an extremely cold man."
Growing up, she and her family attended a "fundamentalist, hellfire and brimstone" church, which she disliked deeply and turned her away from religion as an adult. Grady developed a brain tumor when Hinton was 15 and died when she was in her junior year of high school.
Sign in to keep reading
3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Career
1960s: The Outsiders
While still in her teens, Hinton wrote The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel, set in Oklahoma in the 1960s. She began writing it in 1965. The book was inspired by two rival gangs at her school, Will Rogers High School, the Greasers and the Socs, and her desire to empathize with the Greasers by writing from their point of view. She wrote the novel when she was 16 and it was published in 1967. Since then, the book has sold more than 14 million copies. In 2017, Viking Press stated the book sells over 500,000 copies a year.
Hinton's publisher suggested she use her initials instead of her feminine given names so that the first male book reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its author was female. After the success of The Outsiders, Hinton chose to continue writing and publishing using her initials because she did not want to lose what she had made famous and to allow her to keep her private and public lives separate.
1970s–1980s: Young adult novels
In 1971, Hinton released her second book, That Was Then, This Is Now, a coming-of-age story following two close friends, Byron and Mark, whose friendship is tested when the two of them are exposed to the world of drug dealing. Her third book, Rumble Fish, followed in 1975. It is about high-schooler Rusty-James, whose admiration for his older brother leads to jealousy and heartbreak. Her fourth young adult novel, Tex, was published in 1979 and follows reckless teenager Tex and his difficult family life. Taming the Star Runner, her final young adult novel, was published in 1988 and is the only one of her YA novels that has not been made into a film.
By 1982, her four novels had sold over 10 million copies.
1990s–2000s: Children's and adult books
In the 1990s, Hinton began writing children's books. She published the picture book Big David, Little David in 1995. It was followed later that year with The Puppy Sister, a children's novella about a family's pet dog turning into a human.
In 2004, Hinton released her first adult novel, Hawkes Harbor. Unlike her previous books, Hawkes Harbor contains strong language and sexual situations. Her second adult novel, Some of Tim's Stories, was published in 2007.
Hinton continues to write and has tried other styles of writing, including screenwriting.
Personal life
In interviews, Hinton has said that she is a private person and an introvert who no longer does public appearances. She enjoys reading (Jane Austen, Mary Renault, and F. Scott Fitzgerald), taking classes at the local university, and horseback riding (she has shown in dressage and jumping). Hinton also revealed to Vulture that she enjoys writing fan fiction.
In 1970, Hinton married David E. Inhofe, a software engineer she met in her freshman biology class at college. He is a cousin of former Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe. Following the success of The Outsiders, Hinton developed writer's block and grew depressed, and Inhofe encouraged her to keep writing by making her write two pages a day, which led to the eventual completion of That Was Then, This Is Now. Their only child, Nicholas David, was born in August 1983 in Tulsa, where Hinton and her husband reside.
Adaptations
The film adaptations The Outsiders (March 1983) and Rumble Fish (October 1983) were both directed by Francis Ford Coppola; Hinton cowrote the script for Rumble Fish with Coppola. Also adapted to film were Tex (July 1982), directed by Tim Hunter, and That Was Then... This Is Now (November 1985), directed by Christopher Cain. Hinton herself acted as a location scout, and she had cameo roles in three of the four films. She plays a nurse in Dallas's hospital room in The Outsiders. In Tex, she is the typing teacher. She also appears as a sex worker propositioning Rusty James in Rumble Fish. In 2009, Hinton portrayed the school principal in The Legend of Billy Fail.