Customer Reviews

A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I grew up in Reston, Virginia and graduated from South Lakes High in 1994, along with several of the students Hersch writes about. While she tells some compelling (and mostly accurate) stories, I agree with my classmate's statement that she tends to sensationalize things. Also, Hersch seems to rely almost exclusively on interviews with eight representative students for her information. She does a great job of letting them speak for themselves and avoiding the good-teen / bad-teen dichotomy, but this method has pitfalls of its own. In particular, she condemns adults for not knowing where their children are, but doesn't give them a chance to speak for themselves. She includes only brief snippets of interviews with parents, most of which simply drive home the point that Mom and Dad haven't a clue.

Also, the book would have been much more balanced and accurate if she had stepped back a little and taken the time to read between the lines of the interviews, rather than showing consistent sympathy for her eight subjects. At one point, she tells the story of Rachel, who was raped and subsequently dumped by her two best friends. One of the friends was Hersch's interview subject; she stated that Rachel had become "mean and insulting" and not a good friend. Hersch takes this at face value; she makes no attempt to get Rachel's side of the story. In trying to create a sympathetic portrait of these students, she ignores the dog-eat-dog nature of high school social life -- a factor that would have made many of her stories all the more poignant if she'd taken it into account.

I am from SL and am compelled to add in my two cents regarding the book and the experience. I graduated in 1996, and know the many of the people portrayed and events discussed. Those mentioned were a very narrow slice of the cultural topography in the school and would mostly fit into the middle ground, never any more "at risk" than most out there. There were plenty of others who never faced the types of dilemmas illustrated, and many like me, who wished that our teenage years had only been as calm as those portrayed in this book. Hersch, though attempting to be savvy, objective and probing, got many of her facts VERY wrong (I can't stress that one enough), and ended up coming across to me as equally naive as any of the other parents who she attacked, only armed with a tape recorder and a bit more access to the personal views of the kids. She foolishly believed that she was privy to was uncensored dialogue: HA! This book is best read by ignoring Hersch's personal agenda and instead using it as a portrayal of the general teen experience. I think that a parent can use this book to remind themselves of the true difference in motivation that most teens have as compared with his/her parents. Importantly, it is not that teens are irresponsible, it is only that their personal definition of responsibility starts with their motivations for decision making (which are NOT paying the mortgage and putting food on the table) Also, teenagers without support at home, whether they complain about it or not, create their own networks of support through friends. This often leads to solving problems independently of parents, and, with only limited experience available to them, sometimes very poorly. Again, motivation. This is an important consideration for parents when confronting the laundry list of evils that face our burgeoning adults.

Patricia Hersch has made a valuable contribution to our society by illuminating a part of America's increasingly fragmented culture. As a 22 year old youth minister, I was reminded of many of my own experiences as a 1995 high school graduate, as well as of many of lives of the students I currently serve at local high schools. Withstanding all of the criticism I read about her in other reviews -- that she unfairly portrayed the parents as evil, didn't offer coherent solutions to the many problems, and over-sensationalized the issues for the purpose of making a profit -- I thought her analysis was penetrating, insightful, and educational. Her one-on-one long term relationships with the teens allowed her to avoid any superficial judgments of their behavior, but instead give a comprehensive account of their thoughts, motivations, values, and life philosophies (sound or unsound). As to her detractors: 1) I didn't get the impression that the parents were portrayed as inherently evil, but that they had many problems of their own to deal with, tragically leaving their children out on a limb in terms of any guiding principles or love. 2) In terms of offering viable solutions, on page 364, she says our teenagers today need two things: adults (teachers, parents) who listen to them, and a community that rallies around them...sound like pretty sound advice to me. 3) As to the alleged sensationalism, teenagers today live in a sensational world! 1 in 6 teens contemplates suicide before the age of 18, and 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused by that same age. Much of the media that saturates their world is nothing but a sensationalized culture of existentialist experimentation with violence, sex, and drugs...

Good job, Patricia...you've made me better able to serve this generation in such desperate need of guidance and love, and opened many eyes to the realities of teenage culture today, whether we are comfortable with it or not.

Reading A Tribe Apart was like reliving my high school experience. I am a '97 graduate of South Lakes high school and I know just about everyone mentioned in the book. Mrs. Hersch does a good job of making the reader realize that everyone that you see in the hallways isn't just another pretty face. It made me wonder about all the kids in high school that I never really knew. I enjoyed reading the book, but maybe that is because I went to the school and it describes multiple events that I attended. However, I think that South Lakes was probably a typical high school and that everyone will be able to relate to the trials and tribulations that these kids have faced in some way or another. Yes, Mrs. Hersch doesn't reveal much that isn't already known about suburban youth in America. Yes, she tends to generalize and blame problems on the current culture, music, and parents instead of giving the responsibility to the kids themselves. That's nothing new. But what she does do is give you a glimpse inside 8 individual lives that you would not have known about if not for this book. It is the story of eight kids at one high school. There may be similarities to other kids at other high schools but the beauty of this book is the detail and the passion she brings to telling the story of THESE kids, not the general statements that can be inferred about today's youth. Forty years from now when I want to remember my high school experience, I will be able to read this book and know what it felt like to be in high school and not know who your classmates really were. A Tribe Apart gives you the chance to learn more about high school students than what it says next to their picture in the yearbook...

When Mrs. Hersch set out to create a picture of normal adolescent life in a normal suburban town, she decided to labor for six years to create this book, hoping that it would create a picture of teenage life for the public. In my opinion, she has failed in this objective; however, she has made a very entertaining book.

I live in Reston, VA and am a freshman at Thomas Jefferson High School (not the school featured in the book). I did, however, attend Langston Hughes middle school and have a great deal of friends that trudge off to South Lakes in the morning. I'm not going to challenge the truthfulness or fairness of her claims on life at South Lakes, as I don't feel I am qualified to do so, but what I do take issue with are her methods of information gathering.

Early on in the book, she states that she wants to get a good picture of 'normal' adolescence ("...seek out the regular kids who appeared balanced." -p. 24). How does Mrs. Hersch, as much in the dark as anyone is about the teenage psyche, define a 'regular kid'? There is no explanation. And as we see, each of the kids turns out to be removed from the 'norm' in one way or another. Perhaps this is a point that Mrs. Hersch is trying to make; however, her unscientific methods begin the book's descent into shameless sensationalism.

Another problem with Mrs. Hersch's method is that Reston, VA is not a normal town. It is a planned community with diverse social and economic groups at work in it that one would not find in a 'normal' town. Little is made of this important factor in the book, and it seems that Mrs. Hersch simply picked the most convenient town to conduct her study in.

The eight teens that Mrs. Hersch bases the framework of her book around are certainly a diverse bunch: a graffiti artist, a hippie, a lacrosse-playing politician, an innocent seventh grader, etc. And while their stories are certainly an interesting read, Mrs. Hersch seems to abandon her quest to provide a picture of regular adolescent life and focuses instead on the abnormal and interesting (raves, dances, arguments, sex) things that happen in these people's lives. It appears that her journalistic training takes over: provide the biggest headlines, the flashiest story, the juiciest scandal, and people will read it.

In the few first-person interludes, I also find her attitude to be infuriatingly smug. Spouting phrases like "Most kids found it hard to believe that I was willing to take so much time with them" and "I was involved in relating honestly, openly, and effectively with adolescents", Mrs. Hersch demonstrates an 'I'm so pleased with myself' mantra and refers constantly to the fact that she is the ONLY adult that takes the time to even contemplate caring about adolescents. Luckily, these sections are few and far between.

If you really feel the need to have the worst parts of adolescence highlighted for you, summarized and made to look like the whole unabridged version, read this book. If you prefer the whole picture, take this book with a grain of salt, for it is truly the epitome of journalistic writing brought to a subject that doesn't really need any more added excitement.

Hersch's book begins by citing the Columbine and other school shootings as proof of her claim of an "insidious" trend toward teenagers becoming "a tribe apart" ruled by flawed "adolescent logic" and values. This claim is thoroughly questionable. First, by any measure, the vast majority of kids are good, most parents are good parents, and Hersch's blanket statements about all teenagers from the eight suburban Reston, Virginia, youths she selected to study is classic overgeneralization. Second, the school shootings of the last three years (by 11 kids out of the 25 million teenagers attending public schools, let's remember) were not the apex of rising slaughter; they were rare anomalies at a time (1998-99) when school violence and homicide by suburban youth stood at a 25-year LOW. Third, like so many grownups now deploring kids as lost and ill behaved, Hersch trains a critical microscope on teenagers but straps on blinders when it comes to her own generation. If some teens she studied sneak out of their house at night and experiment with alcohol, drugs, sex, and petty crime, how does that make them "a tribe apart" from how their Baby Boom parents acted as kids or how adults act today? In suburban Fairfax County, Virginia, where Hersch studied Reston's "tribal" teens, only one in eight people who die from drug or alcohol overdoses are under age 25; three-fourths are over age 30, just the tip of the middle-aged drug abuse problem. Virginia Uniform Crime Reports show that EVERY WEEK in Fairfax County in the 1990s, 50 grownups were arrested for violent crimes, 100 for property felonies, 200 for drunken and drug-related crimes, and 500 for all offenses -- one every 20 minutes! Half these adult offenses are by 30- and 40-agers, mostly white, the nation's fastest-growing crime population (what about all those gun massacres by middle-agers from Atlanta to Honolulu lately... do they prove midlifers are an amoral "tribe apart"?) and the parent generation of the kids Hersch studies. Occasionally she hints at this "adult" problem. Hersch reports a mother who tells her daughter (who tried to commit suicide because of her abusive father) that "I really don't like someone like you living in my house," another mother who tells her kids she hates them, other parents so self-absorbed with their own troubled marriages and belated identity crises that their children have to raise themselves. This problem goes beyond Hersch's claim that many adults today are merely too busy, "hands off," and trusting to rein in our little barbarians; this rising grownup disarray leaves many youths better off being socialized by peers than by adults. Her ultimate conclusion that those teens and adults who enjoy stable, healthy families are well-adjusted and doing well demands a tougher analysis not of the supposed "secret lives" of teens, but why so many suburban grownups are messed up. Hersch has sympathy for kids and rightly deplores today's paranoid climate toward young people, which makes it baffling that she authored a one-sided book that adds to paranoia. Donna Gaines' updated "Teenage Wasteland," unlike most of the avalanche of our-kids-are-terrible books, presents a more balanced picture of the suburban grownup crisis and the complex ways (some successful, some not) kids try to cope with it. Mike Males, Ph.D. Santa Cruz, CA Email mmales@earthlink.net

As a veteran educator of 25 years in regular, special, and alternative school settings, I have spent much time with adolescents, most of whom had learning and behavioral problems. During this time, I learned that the primary need of adolescents is to be heard. Ms. Hersch listened to these teens and gave them a voice. The message that she communicated to us may not be what we want to hear, but the message is clear: we adults need to listen to our kids. No, this is not a new message, but it is an important one that needs repeating. In these days, when both parents leave early and come home late, kids are not heard. In these days, when teachers are forced to teach the test and not the kids, kids are not heard. And in these days, when TV and computers take the place of in-person human interaction, kids are not heard. When they are not heard, they do not feel valued and they feel alone. And, many of these lonely kids use drugs and alcohol, carry weapons, join gangs, or create their own "tribe." During my journey as a secondary educator, it was the "loners" who frightened me much more than the aggressive bullies. I could effectively deal with the behaviors that I could see and hear; it was much more difficult to deal with silence and kids who wanted to be invisible, the ciphers in the snow. Being available to kids invites them to connect to family and community. It is important that we continuosuly invite adolescents to participate in our adult world because that's where their journey leads them, with or without our guidance.

As a parent of three adolescents, I found this book to be very enlightening. I only wish I had read it before my children were adolescents so that I would have known what to expect.I feel that the importance of this book is the way Ms Hersch looks at all of the problems that the kids have, large or small, by focusing on their feelings. Adults so quickly forget how difficult it is to be an adolescent. They are trying to find their own identities while dealing with peer problems, problems in school, sex, drugs, alcohol, family dysfunction, etc. Ms Hersch has been criticized for making most of the parents look bad, but from my experience, those are exactly the kinds of parents most of my children's friends have. Too preoccupied with their own lives, and their own problems. As an adolescent myself during the 70's, I remember the motto at the time was,"I may as well do it, everybody else is." Of course referring to drug and alcohol abuse, having sex, etc. The problem that I have noticed is that my generation are now the parents, and now they use that excuse for the same behavior in their kids, "Oh well, everyone else's kid is doing it." Their exceptance of adolescent risky behavior only makes the behaviors become riskier. It shows how parents have become just plain lazy at parenting.
Ms Hersch's book does not answer all the questions about today's adolescents, but it does give parents who have the time to be interested, some important clues on what their child is going through, and what they need from their parents and other adults.

I've seen people say this book does not cover the mainstream or is not the best read, but I would disagree. Hersch takes the time to listen, to let 8 students tell their story. I was in high school at the time when this book was being published, and it is much more accurate that most adults care to realize. It is a narrative, but it is an accurate look at the millennial generation. The only other book that I have seen to compete in accuracy would be 'Hurt' by Chap Clark, but it is more of an academic read. Anyway, if you care for an inside look of adolescence, here is your chance.

As I compose this review, I find it difficult to know just where to start. I was one of the author's characters, I didn't know I was a character until a colleague of mine read the book and identified me. I went out and bought the book, and was horrified to find, that I was indeed, a character in her book. So, before you buy this book, or if you are reading this book, please know that the Author is someone, in my personal opinion, who has not been completely honest with you. I know every person she identifies in the book, and she does tell parts of their stories. There are things that parent's should be aware of, that perhaps they are not. They should know to talk to their kids about these issues, and perhaps this book is a good way to open those doors of communication. The problem with the stories, is that they aren't the whole stories, they identify issues, that are out there to shock you, but don't dive deep enough to get to the root of any one problem. I guess, in the end, nothing is solved. Most people know these things happen in every high school in America. Reston, South Lakes, is not special. These problems exist everywhere, and after nearly 400 pages, you won't know how to solve them, or why they are there. In a straight literature review, I also only give the book 1 star, because it is very poorly written. My heart accuses the author of using Jonathan/Caleb's suicide as the book's message. The book is Jonathan; nothing more. The 339 pages that embodies the bulk of the book, ostensibly to alert the reader of adolescent behavior is sandwiched between the prologue, eight pages, and the postscript, two pages. I feel that the author wrote the prologue after Caleb's death to give a novel-like flavor. To keep reminding the reader of Jonathan, he surfaces, at times, throughout the book, but in a minor way. We are reminded of his constant anguish and mental turmoil; his parent's apartness, divorce, wilderness, college... all unresolved. The prologue is written in a diary format, as if the author were with Jonathan, and it is unsettling to me. It sets the stage for the rest of the novel; it's not all that it seems. My suggestion for any would-be reader is to spend the eight hours it would take you to read this to talk to your children. Let them know you trust them, and that they can trust you. Be to them, what you wish your parent's had been to you. If you want to be alarmed, or feel you can't talk to your kids, read the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development report. This book will do nothing but upset you, and continue to lead readers to believe that Reston is a terrible place to be, and My generation is a lost cause. Please don't believe that. There are at least 2000 of us there when she was, who strongly, passionately disagree. Her tribe has grown up, and we're OK.