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Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb
In March 1989 a group of teenage boys lured a mentally handicapped girl into a basement in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, and raped her. Glen Ridge was the kind of peaceful, affluent suburb many Americans dream about. The rapists were its most popular high school athletes. And although rumors of the crime quickly spread through the town, weeks passed before anyone saw fit to report it to the police.
What made these boys capable of brutalizing a girl that some of them had known since childhood? Why did so many of their elders deny the rape and rally around its perpetrators? To solve this riddle, the Edgar award-winning author Bernard Lefkowitz conducted years of research and more than two hundred interviews. The result is not just a wrenching story of crime and punishment, but a hauntingly nuanced portrait of America's jock culture and the hidden world of unrestrained adolescent sexuality.
What made these boys capable of brutalizing a girl that some of them had known since childhood? Why did so many of their elders deny the rape and rally around its perpetrators? To solve this riddle, the Edgar award-winning author Bernard Lefkowitz conducted years of research and more than two hundred interviews. The result is not just a wrenching story of crime and punishment, but a hauntingly nuanced portrait of America's jock culture and the hidden world of unrestrained adolescent sexuality.
516 pages, Paperback
First published June 11, 1997
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August 17, 2017
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I had to read this book for a college sociology class and I had zero expectations in enjoying the book given the content of it. It's true that it's difficult to read at times, but the writing pulled me in and I had to know what was going to happen to the group of people responsible.
What's no surprise to me, even after reading this years ago, is that this behavior is still relevant today. There are people willing to overlook their child's behavior and they'll do whatever it takes to protect them. In this case, it was an entire community.
They did make this into a lifetime movie which can be seen on YouTube, but the book is way better. The book also contains real pictures of the people involved. I would recommend not even reading the blurb on this one. Just jump in and read it...
5*****
I had to read this book for a college sociology class and I had zero expectations in enjoying the book given the content of it. It's true that it's difficult to read at times, but the writing pulled me in and I had to know what was going to happen to the group of people responsible.
What's no surprise to me, even after reading this years ago, is that this behavior is still relevant today. There are people willing to overlook their child's behavior and they'll do whatever it takes to protect them. In this case, it was an entire community.
They did make this into a lifetime movie which can be seen on YouTube, but the book is way better. The book also contains real pictures of the people involved. I would recommend not even reading the blurb on this one. Just jump in and read it...
5*****
October 31, 2020
The All-American high-school football team in an All-American affluent Jersey suburb conspire to sweet-talk, seduce, and violate a mentally impaired young teen-aged girl from their school. It only took a little poking for journalist Bernard Lefkowitz to discover that this classy Jersey suburb had (has?) a high school that harbored almost a "redneck" veneration of its football team -- and had reason to hush up its atrocity in abusing a young adoring girl.
Yes, it's heinous, but finding out what happened (and what almost didn't) is the heart of this well-researched and well-written book. Without giving its events away, I'll say that OUR GUYS demonstrates that the ability to INTERPRET a situation is in most respects more important than the ability to SOLVE it. Those who read it will find OUR GUYS occasionally rough sledding because of its sordid subject matter, but ultimately thought-provoking and worthwhile. This insightful work speaks volumes about class expectations in America, mainstreaming, and the way high schoolers like to segregate themselves into dissident cliques. After re-reading it recently, it occurred to me that although it has been over twenty years since the book's original publication (1998), OUR GUYS remains crucial still.
Yes, it's heinous, but finding out what happened (and what almost didn't) is the heart of this well-researched and well-written book. Without giving its events away, I'll say that OUR GUYS demonstrates that the ability to INTERPRET a situation is in most respects more important than the ability to SOLVE it. Those who read it will find OUR GUYS occasionally rough sledding because of its sordid subject matter, but ultimately thought-provoking and worthwhile. This insightful work speaks volumes about class expectations in America, mainstreaming, and the way high schoolers like to segregate themselves into dissident cliques. After re-reading it recently, it occurred to me that although it has been over twenty years since the book's original publication (1998), OUR GUYS remains crucial still.
Not the pleasantest reading, but necessary and thought-provoking.
June 19, 2022
This is the most horrifying case of teenage toxic masculinity I've ever read about. The "idyllic" upper middle class town of Glen Ridge, NJ in the 1980s worshipped its high school athletes - the males, that is. The high school was small, fewer than 100 students per graduating class, and the football and baseball teams were revered. The attention paid to sports was many times more than the attention paid to academic success; sports trophies sat in prominent cases, the whole town came to a halt for Homecoming festivities. So when rumors began to circulate that a group of jocks had sexually assaulted a retarded 17-year old girl with a baseball bat, a broomstick, and possibly a drum stick in the basement of two teen brothers, large numbers of people immediately came to the jocks' defense. (Writing in 1997, the author uses the term "retarded" which is now considered offensive. Evaluated by the school in 1987, two years before the rape, the girl had an IQ of between 49-51 and had been deemed at a second-grade level functionally.)
Around thirteen boys were in the basement. A few of the boys, seeing what was about to happen, left the house. Some of the others watched but didn't participate. One teen happened to be the son of a Glen Ridge police lieutenant; it was unclear exactly what his role had been, and his case never went to trial. Ultimately, three years later, four went on trial for rape: twins Kevin and Kyle Scherzer, whose basement was the crime scene, Chris Archer, and Bryant Grober. All had been younger than 18 at the time of the assault.
"Leslie" (the pseudonym the author gives her) had gone to the high school, although she went to a different one that could accommodate her better in 1989. She knew all of the boys. She had a crush on Chris Archer's brother Paul. Chris lured her to the basement from a nearby park where she was shooting hoops, promising that Paul would go out with her if she came over. After the assault, Leslie asked if she could now go out with Paul. She was told no. She stood outside the house, waiting for Paul to show up, but he didn’t.
The jocks of Glen Ridge were entitled, rarely ever held accountable for their actions. One party they attended became legendary. It was thrown by a shy junior girl whose parents were out of town. She wanted to be popular, so everyone was invited. “She was a girl none of us liked,” one of the jocks’ girlfriends said. “If someone didn’t like you, they’re not going to have respect for your home.” The party lasted three days. On the first day, all the glassware and crystal was removed from the cupboards and flung against the walls. On the second day, partygoers took all the furniture apart, breaking the legs off tables and chairs, throwing the furniture onto the lawn, using the legs to bust holes in the interior walls. Even bookshelves screwed to the walls were torn out. Comet cleanser was poured into the fish tank. On the third day, the door frame of the front door was dislodged. The walls were sprayed with graffiti. The girl’s parents’ bed was dismantled. It was a waterbed, and they used it to slide down the stairs, after smashing away the balusters. Someone put the girl’s cat into the microwave and turned it on, before another person pulled it out. Finally, the police were called and the party broke up. Despite all the destruction, none of the students were charged with crimes, none were punished by the high school, and none of them even lost athletic privileges. The girl and her family were forced to move out of the wrecked house. The party was cited with pride by the jocks in their yearbooks.
Another thing the jocks would brag about in their yearbooks was their sexual activities. “Hoovering” meant getting blow jobs, their preferred form of romance. “Voyeuring” was when a guy’s friends would hide in a closet, watching him have sex or get a blow job, then when it was over, burst out and surprise the girl (the boy was always in on the stunt). Sometimes voyeuring meant watching a girl urinate.
Kyle and Kevin would routinely terrorize female students. One recalled that she was wearing a tee and boxer shorts at school on a hot day when Kyle and Kevin grabbed her, tossed her books away, and dragged her through the halls, trying to pull down her shorts. (Does this remind you of any Supreme Court justices?) She screamed the entire way, and a teacher stuck her head out of a door, didn't say anything, and closed the door. Finally the boys let her go.
Kevin Scherzer usually wore sweatpants to school because it made it easier to get out of them. He would pull them down in class and sit bare butted in his chair. He would get behind the teacher and pretend to hump her. When her back was turned, he would expose himself. He would bring his penis out of the sweatpants and masturbate, both in class, and in detention. He was never disciplined for these things. A football coach described Kevin as "fun to be around," "a charismatic young man."
The Scherzer boys and two other boys had gotten Leslie to lick dog feces when she was five, telling her it was chocolate.
Chris Archer had previously tried to get Leslie to insert a frozen hot dog into her vagina. The judge wouldn't allow this into trial testimony, although he did allow Leslie's sexual history and gynecology records. The defense lawyers stressed how promiscuous Leslie was – she was even on birth control. Her mother had put her on birth control because Leslie was exceptionally vulnerable – she had suffered a previous sexual assault.
The jocks’ defense lawyers aggressively tried to portray Leslie as a seductress and Lolita. Leslie’s highest goal was to be friends with people, and the better looking and more popular they were, the more she desired their friendship. She was an easy mark for bullies and sociopaths. At trial, Kevin Scherzer’s lawyer Michael Querques asked Leslie’s mother: “What did you do to protect young males in the event they touched her?”
Once Querques stood outside the courtroom during a break and opined about Leslie, “This girl is a pig. She’s just a plain pig. If she wasn’t retarded, everybody’d say, She’s a pig. She’s somebody I’d keep my kids away from. I’d make sure I protected them from her.”
Bryant Grober had a 4-year GPA of 1.96 out of 4 and ranked 78th in his class. Kevin Scherzer had a GPA of 1.75 and ranked 88th. Kyle Scherzer had a GPA of 1.82 and ranked 85th. Peter Quigley, whose sentence was community service in exchange for making a statement against the four who went to trial, had a GPA of 1.88 and ranked 82nd. Richie Corcoran, the son of a Glen Ridge police lieutenant, had a GPA of 1.41 and was ranked 94th. He was the only one of the teens involved who didn't head to college.
Chris Archer, the youngest of the four rapists, was only a junior at the time. He made the high honor roll, ranking 12th in his class of 93 students with a GPA of 3.65. After graduating in 1990, he attended Boston College. There, he allegedly assaulted a fellow student, pulling her into some bushes, ripping her clothes off, and shoving his fist into her vagina and penetrating her anus with his fingers. The victim was afraid to file a criminal complaint because she feared being publicly vilified. She signed a sealed affidavit attesting to her assault, but it was never introduced at Chris Archer's 1992 trial and her allegations were never adjudicated.
Leslie testified at trial. Occasionally she got confused, but she stuck to her overall story. Sometimes the lawyers were openly aggressive, but some of them tried to treat her as a buddy, which she was receptive to. She warmed up to the defense lawyers who got friendly. But the jury could see when Leslie was being manipulated, even when Leslie couldn’t. On the stand, Leslie came across as someone who understood the basic mechanics and slang of sex, but also as completely childlike. She continued to think of the defendants as her friends, and was torn. She didn't want them to go to jail.
The jury convicted the defendants on the most serious charges and acquitted them on lesser charges. Kyle, Kevin, and Chris faced 40 year maximum sentences. Yet they were all released on bail, even as convicted rapists. Kyle, Kevin, and Chris were sentenced to a maximum of fifteen years but because they could serve it in a “young adult offenders” institution, could end up serving less than two years if they maintained good behavior; Bryant Grober (who had forced Leslie to perform oral sex on him) got three years of probation and 200 hours of community service.
April 26, 2020
New review, April 2020:
After re-reading this book for the first time in more than 20 years, I've bumped it up to the full five stars. It is very likely the best true-crime book I've ever read, its impact has never waned since first encountering it as a senior in high school, and it's a crackling good read to boot.
Back then, I loved it for its merciless evisceration of jock culture, which admittedly was low-hanging fruit. I also lived (and still do) a stone's throw away from Glen Ridge, so I was familiar with its dynamics.
What stands out two decades later is how adroitly it foretold the coming conversation we'd all be having about sexual consent, toxic masculinity, and a largely inadequate justice system. It's missing the buzzwords and the hashtag that have turned it into a national movement, but in our post-Steubenville, post-Kavanaugh world, this book has not aged a day.*
Obviously the victim being mentally challenged adds a sinister wrinkle to the story here, but otherwise the trajectory will be painfully familiar, as will the excuses: Boys will be boys, they couldn't resist the Lolita-esque seductress, these boys come from good families, let's not ruin their futures, etc. Add the race and class considerations always hovering overhead and you've got a book still very much in step in 2020.
*Except for the then-acceptable use of retardation to describe the victim's condition. A good reminder of just how swiftly it's fallen out of favor.
---
Original review:
I just wrote some comments on the book Until Proven Innocent, which was about the Duke lacrosse fiasco. In that case, a community engaging in class warfare, law enforcement, and the media all conspired to blame the accused, long after obvious contradictions had arisen.
Our Guys is kind of the flip side to that nightmare (but is essentially the same nightmare). Here the community blamed the victim and rallied around the accused, long after the damning facts came out and these athletes' mythology had been shattered.
I remember this book being excerpted in Sports Illustrated some years back, and it caught my eye because Glen Ridge is right next to my hometown. I read the article and quickly went to the bookstore and bought the entire book. I recall it being a thought-provoking social commentary while also having all the trappings of a riveting courtroom thriller. It also fit in nicely with my learned disdain for jock culture and all the macho bullshit that goes with it, which when I read this book in high school, was at a fever pitch.
The moral of these two stories, which were published years apart but actually complement each other very well, is that you should never underestimate the ability of people to take something they heard and place it into whatever narrative they've already constructed in their heads.
After re-reading this book for the first time in more than 20 years, I've bumped it up to the full five stars. It is very likely the best true-crime book I've ever read, its impact has never waned since first encountering it as a senior in high school, and it's a crackling good read to boot.
Back then, I loved it for its merciless evisceration of jock culture, which admittedly was low-hanging fruit. I also lived (and still do) a stone's throw away from Glen Ridge, so I was familiar with its dynamics.
What stands out two decades later is how adroitly it foretold the coming conversation we'd all be having about sexual consent, toxic masculinity, and a largely inadequate justice system. It's missing the buzzwords and the hashtag that have turned it into a national movement, but in our post-Steubenville, post-Kavanaugh world, this book has not aged a day.*
Obviously the victim being mentally challenged adds a sinister wrinkle to the story here, but otherwise the trajectory will be painfully familiar, as will the excuses: Boys will be boys, they couldn't resist the Lolita-esque seductress, these boys come from good families, let's not ruin their futures, etc. Add the race and class considerations always hovering overhead and you've got a book still very much in step in 2020.
*Except for the then-acceptable use of retardation to describe the victim's condition. A good reminder of just how swiftly it's fallen out of favor.
---
Original review:
I just wrote some comments on the book Until Proven Innocent, which was about the Duke lacrosse fiasco. In that case, a community engaging in class warfare, law enforcement, and the media all conspired to blame the accused, long after obvious contradictions had arisen.
Our Guys is kind of the flip side to that nightmare (but is essentially the same nightmare). Here the community blamed the victim and rallied around the accused, long after the damning facts came out and these athletes' mythology had been shattered.
I remember this book being excerpted in Sports Illustrated some years back, and it caught my eye because Glen Ridge is right next to my hometown. I read the article and quickly went to the bookstore and bought the entire book. I recall it being a thought-provoking social commentary while also having all the trappings of a riveting courtroom thriller. It also fit in nicely with my learned disdain for jock culture and all the macho bullshit that goes with it, which when I read this book in high school, was at a fever pitch.
The moral of these two stories, which were published years apart but actually complement each other very well, is that you should never underestimate the ability of people to take something they heard and place it into whatever narrative they've already constructed in their heads.
January 5, 2013
Most compelling reason for why we should change the way we look at sport players.
Sad thing is, nothing has really changed since this book came out.
Sad thing is, nothing has really changed since this book came out.
June 20, 2007
I was assigned to read this book in a college class on gender, and it fit the "you-can't-put-it-down" category better than any other I can think of. I agree with critics that Lefkowitz lets too much of his bias into the already compelling story. But he does an excellent job providing background of the incident: history, culture, specific people.
Having recently suffered high school, much in this book didn't surprise me. A reviewer from Glen Ridge gave interesting comments (I lived in the area at the time, too), but I think that person missed the point. It's not Glen Ridge, it could just as easily be Chesterfield, MO; Brookline, MA; Northbrook, IL; Dunwoody, GA; or any other upper class suburb. Or indeed, anywhere period. I detected a theme linking money to power to exploitation of others, though perhaps that's my liberal political leanings.
I think the best quality of this book is its potential to rile people to action, and I hope readers write letters, hold Take Back the Night observances, educate themselves, improve rape prevention programmes in their local middle and high schools, or do anything else to prevent rape. Some 1 of 4 undergraduate women have been raped; this problem is too large to not act on--and my campus learned that ignoring it will only produce regret.
Having recently suffered high school, much in this book didn't surprise me. A reviewer from Glen Ridge gave interesting comments (I lived in the area at the time, too), but I think that person missed the point. It's not Glen Ridge, it could just as easily be Chesterfield, MO; Brookline, MA; Northbrook, IL; Dunwoody, GA; or any other upper class suburb. Or indeed, anywhere period. I detected a theme linking money to power to exploitation of others, though perhaps that's my liberal political leanings.
I think the best quality of this book is its potential to rile people to action, and I hope readers write letters, hold Take Back the Night observances, educate themselves, improve rape prevention programmes in their local middle and high schools, or do anything else to prevent rape. Some 1 of 4 undergraduate women have been raped; this problem is too large to not act on--and my campus learned that ignoring it will only produce regret.
April 25, 2011
A statement on page 491 of this book pretty much says it all: " ... through her (the girl who was raped) life it appeared that the values of the community around her; the community she grew up in, had not progressed beyond those of a high school pep rally." And that's pretty much what the town of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, feels like while reading this book: a town that, adults included, lived through and for its high school athletes (boys only, of course), protected them at all costs, and believed they could do no wrong.
Entire other books have been written about the psychology of this, but this one is about the gang rape of a mentally handicapped high school girl by a group of high school jocks who she thought were her friends. The first half of the book deals with the town, its residents, and what happened to this young woman on March 1, 1989; the second half covers the trial. It's a long book, but it needs to be in order to do justice to the story (no pun intended. .. and you'll have to read it and decide for yourself if justice was served.)
This is a town with a long history of protection and adulation of its prized male high school athletes, to the extent that they were allowed to do what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, with anyone they wanted. .. with few, if any repercussions or responsibility for wrong choices. I don't find it all that surprising that what happened on that March evening happened. This seems to prove two things: humans do not have a reliable "innate" moral compass (it needs to be taught, reinforced and nurtured) and "pack behavior" is a strong force, and not just among the "lesser animals." I don't say this to excuse what happened here, but rather to in some way explain it.
The fact that I can come to these conclusions is a testament to how well written and researched this book is. It's absolutely absorbing, as well as horrifying. It's like a grotesque accident you just can't tear yourself away from. Great read; sad SAD story.
Entire other books have been written about the psychology of this, but this one is about the gang rape of a mentally handicapped high school girl by a group of high school jocks who she thought were her friends. The first half of the book deals with the town, its residents, and what happened to this young woman on March 1, 1989; the second half covers the trial. It's a long book, but it needs to be in order to do justice to the story (no pun intended. .. and you'll have to read it and decide for yourself if justice was served.)
This is a town with a long history of protection and adulation of its prized male high school athletes, to the extent that they were allowed to do what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, with anyone they wanted. .. with few, if any repercussions or responsibility for wrong choices. I don't find it all that surprising that what happened on that March evening happened. This seems to prove two things: humans do not have a reliable "innate" moral compass (it needs to be taught, reinforced and nurtured) and "pack behavior" is a strong force, and not just among the "lesser animals." I don't say this to excuse what happened here, but rather to in some way explain it.
The fact that I can come to these conclusions is a testament to how well written and researched this book is. It's absolutely absorbing, as well as horrifying. It's like a grotesque accident you just can't tear yourself away from. Great read; sad SAD story.
May 27, 2019
This is so much more than a true crime book. The author delves into the intricacies of a small, very affluent, very white town in the 80’s and investigates what led thirteen of its golden boys to commit a horrific sexual assault against a mentally handicapped girl. The rape itself is handled with, I felt, the utmost respect and care: there is no torture porn here. The act is described as clinically and minimally as possible very early on in the book. The writer spends the next 500+ pages trying to answer the question: how did this town fail its children?
September 18, 2011
Even though this covers a difficult subject, every teacher, coach, principal and parent should be required to read this book.
October 14, 2022
With the current Hockey Canada scandal, and the gang rape by the Canadian Junior hockey team in halifax, not is a great time to read or reread this book.
June 4, 2012
This was a very interesting well researched book about a case I did not know anything about. It happened quite a long time ago, and it is about a group of popular high school students, who were footballers and because of that (and other sports) they were admired (even though they were not even that good at it) who raped a mentally retarded girl and instead of being ridiculed by the community where they lived, they were all blaming the victim.
It is mostly about how in America at schools, sports is so big that if you play for the team, you do not have to get as high grades as the other students do. When you play for the school it means (if you are a guy that is) you are automatically admired by the teachers and students. Well that was the case in Glen Ridge and in many other cities. Not sure how it is now but I have a feeling it is still the same.
We do not have that culture. yes we do love sport but students who play sport are being treated the same as the ones that don't. I also blame the parents. This was very hard for me to read and I am an avid true crime reader but I was so shocked by the behaviour of the teachers, the community, the fellow students and the parents, it made me so angry sometimes.
Would love to know if those rapists had to do jail time.
It is mostly about how in America at schools, sports is so big that if you play for the team, you do not have to get as high grades as the other students do. When you play for the school it means (if you are a guy that is) you are automatically admired by the teachers and students. Well that was the case in Glen Ridge and in many other cities. Not sure how it is now but I have a feeling it is still the same.
We do not have that culture. yes we do love sport but students who play sport are being treated the same as the ones that don't. I also blame the parents. This was very hard for me to read and I am an avid true crime reader but I was so shocked by the behaviour of the teachers, the community, the fellow students and the parents, it made me so angry sometimes.
Would love to know if those rapists had to do jail time.
March 30, 2013
phenomenal book. if you want to understand what happened in stubenville ohio the read this book. it is a scathing indictment of the toxic american culture that breeds victimizers and rapists. this book is clear that there are no bad apples but a corrosive environment that encourages the strong and affluent to pick on the weak and especially female. it's a jockocracy of misogyny. and it started before these boys lured their victim into the basement and raped her and is clearly still occurring today. this book is a must read for people who want to understand the terrible results of the toxic soup that is insular, homogenous, competitive, hyper-masculine world that was (and more than likely still is) glen ridge. the rape of leslie faber (not her real name) is only one possible outcome though. sometimes the abused and bullied snap instead. for a book that looks at school shootings in these same types of communities (among other things), i highly recommend Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond as well.
May 8, 2009
This book could have been sensationalist & pedestrian given the subject matter &, frankly, the tendencies of most True Crime writers (pump out that book quick before the media blitz stops). I would imagine that when you are writing about something like the gang rape of a retarded teenager by a group of suburban athletes, many of whom had known her since childhood, it would be very easy to write something slick & prurient. Mr. Lefkowitz manages to avoid that.
Mr. Lefkowitz spent 7 years researching this book, not only interviewing (& re-interviewing) hundreds of people either involved in the case or somehow connected to the town of Glen Ridge, NJ where the crime occurred, but he also read most of the literature on rape and on gang rape, in particular, that was in print prior to the book's publication. He obviously has a point of view - he finds this crime shocking, horrible, & unforgivable. Perhaps more importantly, though, he has curiosity. How could this happen in a place like Glen Ridge, NJ?
This is an excellent read, absolutely compelling throughout.
Mr. Lefkowitz spent 7 years researching this book, not only interviewing (& re-interviewing) hundreds of people either involved in the case or somehow connected to the town of Glen Ridge, NJ where the crime occurred, but he also read most of the literature on rape and on gang rape, in particular, that was in print prior to the book's publication. He obviously has a point of view - he finds this crime shocking, horrible, & unforgivable. Perhaps more importantly, though, he has curiosity. How could this happen in a place like Glen Ridge, NJ?
This is an excellent read, absolutely compelling throughout.
Read
September 23, 2011I read this book--every heartbreaking word--years ago, but in light of the recent Texas event (one we've all come to hear about among the many we have not), I'm passing the book along to friends and plan to read it again.
Who was it who said, "History repeats itself"?
When do we learn...
Who was it who said, "History repeats itself"?
When do we learn...
August 21, 2015
This is a painfully detailed read but an important one that provides an in depth analysis of a gang rape of a girl who has mental retardation in Glen Ridge. It provides insight into why and how cultures perpetuate sexual violence so that we can hopefully learn to do better.
February 20, 2024
i am disgusted and furious. the world is truly shocking and evil if it is letting rapists roam the streets this easily. literally fuck anybody who sided with these boys. you people disgust me and idk how the hell you sleep at night.
May 14, 2022
Yeah, sure, it’s the parents who want to homeschool that are nuts.
Completely infuriating from beginning to end.
Completely infuriating from beginning to end.
October 23, 2018
This is a deeply disturbing, detailed and well-researched account of a horrifying gang rape of a mentally impaired teenager by a group of privileged jocks in suburban New Jersey in 1989. The boys used instruments including a broomstick and a baseball bat to rape her. The book goes way beyond just giving an account of “the incident”. It gives the background of the boys and the victim as well as many of their schoolmates, teachers, parents and other adults in the community who turned a blind eye to so much bad behavior by these boys before and after the gang rape. The book also details the trial of the boys and as a former lawyer myself, I cringed many times when reading about the defense lawyers’ truly scummy tactics.
This book is enraging and mind-boggling. It is very hard to understand why these boys were given a free pass to engage in increasingly aberrant behavior. They were athletes, but in a small school where the sports teams weren’t even particularly good, and most of them were truly abysmal students. (Many of them had GPA’s under 2.0). None of them were future NFL players or captains of industry. It’s also hard to understand how the poor mentally impaired girl could be violated so many times – she was sexually assaulted in her early teens, then gang raped a few years later, then her school somehow failed to prevent a reporter from entering the school and interviewing her for a front page newspaper story (so much for keeping her privacy), then a girl who was friends with the jocks pretended to friend her and secretly tape recorded her manipulated admissions that she thought the rape was “fun” and “exciting”. (Bafflingly, the girls’ mom was aware of this “friendship” and wasn’t at all suspicious that her previously lonely and excluded daughter was suddenly making friends after the whole incident was very much public knowledge and most people were treating the girl as enemy number one).
As horrifying as the rape was, what really is sticking in my mind is a short account of an incident they called “Ryan’s Wreck.” A mousy non-popular girl made the mistake of announcing her parents were away for a long weekend and inviting students to party at her house. She wasn’t hated by the jock group. Before the party weekend, they probably never gave her a second thought. Hundreds of kids were at her house over three nights. For no reason whatsoever, the kids absolutely destroyed her house over the course of the three nights – breaking apart all the furniture, puncturing her parents waterbed, tearing up walls, spray painting graffiti everywhere, demolishing stair banisters, etc. Those who didn’t participate didn’t do anything to stop it or report it, either. It wasn’t until the poor girl was threatening to jump off the roof that one boy called the police. It’s just so sickening that so many kids saw what was going on and did nothing. The girls parents moved away and apparently sent the girl off to live somewhere else afterward. I know that the destruction of a house in no way compares to the gang rape of a mentally impaired girl but for some reason the “Ryan’s Wreck” chapter affected me.
At any rate, this is a long book but I was absolutely gripped by it and am glad I read it, although I’m hoping it won’t take long to shake off the feelings of rage and sadness that it left me with.
This book is enraging and mind-boggling. It is very hard to understand why these boys were given a free pass to engage in increasingly aberrant behavior. They were athletes, but in a small school where the sports teams weren’t even particularly good, and most of them were truly abysmal students. (Many of them had GPA’s under 2.0). None of them were future NFL players or captains of industry. It’s also hard to understand how the poor mentally impaired girl could be violated so many times – she was sexually assaulted in her early teens, then gang raped a few years later, then her school somehow failed to prevent a reporter from entering the school and interviewing her for a front page newspaper story (so much for keeping her privacy), then a girl who was friends with the jocks pretended to friend her and secretly tape recorded her manipulated admissions that she thought the rape was “fun” and “exciting”. (Bafflingly, the girls’ mom was aware of this “friendship” and wasn’t at all suspicious that her previously lonely and excluded daughter was suddenly making friends after the whole incident was very much public knowledge and most people were treating the girl as enemy number one).
As horrifying as the rape was, what really is sticking in my mind is a short account of an incident they called “Ryan’s Wreck.” A mousy non-popular girl made the mistake of announcing her parents were away for a long weekend and inviting students to party at her house. She wasn’t hated by the jock group. Before the party weekend, they probably never gave her a second thought. Hundreds of kids were at her house over three nights. For no reason whatsoever, the kids absolutely destroyed her house over the course of the three nights – breaking apart all the furniture, puncturing her parents waterbed, tearing up walls, spray painting graffiti everywhere, demolishing stair banisters, etc. Those who didn’t participate didn’t do anything to stop it or report it, either. It wasn’t until the poor girl was threatening to jump off the roof that one boy called the police. It’s just so sickening that so many kids saw what was going on and did nothing. The girls parents moved away and apparently sent the girl off to live somewhere else afterward. I know that the destruction of a house in no way compares to the gang rape of a mentally impaired girl but for some reason the “Ryan’s Wreck” chapter affected me.
At any rate, this is a long book but I was absolutely gripped by it and am glad I read it, although I’m hoping it won’t take long to shake off the feelings of rage and sadness that it left me with.
May 15, 2011
This book describes the facts of how a group of suburban teenage boys attacked and raped a retarded girl, and covers the subsequent trial. But Lefkowitz goes far beyond that: he describes the childhood of the people involved, the environment of the school and town, and the reaction of the people in town and beyond. He tells of how the attackers started with small examples of inappropriate behavior when they were younger, but were never punished for it -- how they were given passes time and again, and shown that they wouldn't suffer any real consequences. He describes the culture they created, that valued group loyalty among the males in their group, and devalued women.
This book is gripping, if somewhat depressing. The largest drawback is that the tone of the book switches between reporting and editorializing: at times, Lefkowitz describes events in a well-researched manner, relying on everything from numerous interviews to his own observations of the trial, but in some cases he seems to inject his own opinions and conclusions.
This book is gripping, if somewhat depressing. The largest drawback is that the tone of the book switches between reporting and editorializing: at times, Lefkowitz describes events in a well-researched manner, relying on everything from numerous interviews to his own observations of the trial, but in some cases he seems to inject his own opinions and conclusions.
March 9, 2015
I had to read this for a sociology class. It was a doozy.
The story was incredible. Incredibly fucked up. Whatever. It was so difficult to read at times, because I could draw such distinct parallels to my own small-town. I was to the point of losing sleep over this book.
At times, though, it became a little redundant. There was a bit too much historical knowledge, and I've seen in other reviews that the author does show his bias, and he does, quite often. Which is not to say that what these boys did is in any way acceptable or justifiable, just that some of the connections Lefkowitz made in trying to demonize these boys were a bit over-the-top and a bit of a stretch, while ignoring other, more obvious and plausible, explanations. His research was obviously very thorough, but he oversteps at some points.
I wouldn't recommend this unless you want to be scarred for life and unable to look at teenage boys the same way ever again.
The story was incredible. Incredibly fucked up. Whatever. It was so difficult to read at times, because I could draw such distinct parallels to my own small-town. I was to the point of losing sleep over this book.
At times, though, it became a little redundant. There was a bit too much historical knowledge, and I've seen in other reviews that the author does show his bias, and he does, quite often. Which is not to say that what these boys did is in any way acceptable or justifiable, just that some of the connections Lefkowitz made in trying to demonize these boys were a bit over-the-top and a bit of a stretch, while ignoring other, more obvious and plausible, explanations. His research was obviously very thorough, but he oversteps at some points.
I wouldn't recommend this unless you want to be scarred for life and unable to look at teenage boys the same way ever again.
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January 9, 2013I don't know what star rating to give this book. I hate saying it's worth three or four or five stars, because of how horrible it's going to make you feel. It's going to leave a really ugly, really horrible taste in your mouth. So many things are wrong with what happened in Glen Ridge, but I want to just say: a town that would let a school IGNORE a boy MASTURBATING openly in class has something so wrong with it that it's surprising more crimes weren't committed there. You know what? Scratch that. More crimes were committed there, I'm betting, and none of them ever got dealt with. Because duh, BOYS WILL BE BOYS!
Wait, maybe the thing about this book is that it will make you blindingly, rantingly angry. Excuse me while I go update myself on whatever did end up happening to the rapists in this case. (Suspicion: nothing. BOYS WILL BE BOYS!)
Wait, maybe the thing about this book is that it will make you blindingly, rantingly angry. Excuse me while I go update myself on whatever did end up happening to the rapists in this case. (Suspicion: nothing. BOYS WILL BE BOYS!)
April 7, 2014
I read this book for a sociology class for college. I thought this book could have been written with half the pages. It was so slow and full of way too much details. Too much background, too many people in the book with not much to add to the main idea. It was a long slow painful dragged out book. The idea if the book is that the town is messed up because they supported the athletic boys who raped the mentally retarded young women with a broom, stick & baseball bat as well as orally. But the real issue is that the girl didn't say no to the sexual acts because she was not capable of realizing what they were doing to her. Also, the girl was out through the trial and re-victimized over and over. While the boys were not put through that. Double standard. Wrong. Slow book but has a purpose, I suppose.
July 2, 2017
It's almost painful to rate this 5 stars, because it was so disturbing, but I think it earns it. This was an absolutely enraging book. If you want to be reminded that there are whole clusters of people in society with no moral values whatsoever (one of the dads of a defendant at one point basically says that raping a mentally retarded girl with a bat is something any 16-year-old would do - what?! And some of the lawyers of the defendants are real pieces of work too) then this is the book to read.
(Even if you don't want to be reminded, you probably should just for your own and your children's safety. Not that you should constantly be assuming everyone you meet's a predator... but some people definitely are, and blindly trusting that you live in a 'good' community? Well, read this first.)
(Even if you don't want to be reminded, you probably should just for your own and your children's safety. Not that you should constantly be assuming everyone you meet's a predator... but some people definitely are, and blindly trusting that you live in a 'good' community? Well, read this first.)
January 11, 2021
I had to read this book during undergrad for my Women's and Gender's Studies class, and I decided to reread it as I felt rushed reading it for school. I was able to read it carefully, reflect, take notes, and digest. It really is a great book because the author covers so much more that relates to the heinous crime that was committed. This is a factual story that touches upon politics, justice (or lack thereof), violence against women, struggles faced by people with disabilities, racism and racial injustice, and so much more. The author really challenges different systems (e.g. court systems, law enforcement, education system) as they all relate to the crime that was committed and that continues to be committed within all communities. It was a really informative reading.
January 3, 2015
This has been on my list for a long time. I remember the story at the time, and I met the girl years later when she worked at the retail store I was a manager at in the early 2000s. It's still amazing to me - what these boys were allowed to get away with. And as I was reminded, this is still the sort of thing going on in places like Sayreville this past Fall. The attitude of parents, or more truthfully, the ignorance of parents who don't provide any boundaries, rules, etc., and so create kids (who become adults) who act like this. How did it get to the point where everyone gets a trophy, because you are all great and can do no wrong. Um, ok...?
September 14, 2008
It gets worse the longer you read it. There is about 200 pages of story here. But the author retells it so many times it borders on prurient. As a "shocking" expose of White Jock privilege, it would only shock people not raised in America. As a crime novel it it too melodramatic, and as a trial story it is a transcript with quotation marks.
You can probably get all you need from a good search of the news story.
You can probably get all you need from a good search of the news story.
July 14, 2019
Wonderful book. I admit, through the first 150-ish pages, I considered putting the book down. The author's dedication to detailing the community's people and dynamics seemed endless at a point. But as the story unraveled, the understanding of the community made a tabloid-esque story and compelling drama about us, about people. At times, the events seemed so old and distant that the reader can call it a sad -- but historical -- story. But it's real. It's current. It's us. Highly recommend it.
May 28, 2017
Entirely too much back-story was given that I felt wasn't important. Perhaps more importantly, I think I'm interested in issues overall rather than specific instances. Although I do feel it can work if they expand on the issue towards the end of the story.
September 28, 2018
No justice whatsoever. In this particular case, every cliche about white privilege is true. If you know any of these people also know that people don’t change. There is no such thing as rehabilitation. A rapist is a rapist is a rapist is a rapist!
July 17, 2019
Shocking. Sad. Important read.
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