S. E. Hinton

Lore & Background

Hinton was born 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. Hinton married David E. Inhofe in 1970; their only child, Nicholas David, was born in August 1983. She resides in Tulsa.

The Teen Who Invented a Genre

Few authors can claim to have essentially created the category in which they would spend their career, yet that is the mark S. E. Hinton left on American literature. While still a teenager at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, she began drafting a story in 1965 that would become The Outsiders, published in 1967 when she was just sixteen. The novel drew directly from the two rival groups she observed at her school—the Greasers and the Socs—and she set out to give voice to the Greasers by telling their story from inside their own perspective.

Her publisher, sensing that the era's male reviewers might dismiss a young woman's work, urged her to publish under initials rather than her full given name. She agreed, and the strategy worked: the book went on to sell more than fourteen million copies, and by 2017 Viking Press reported it was still moving over half a million copies annually. Hinton has been widely credited with introducing the young-adult genre to the literary world, and she has kept the initials ever since, preferring to keep her private self apart from the public figure who made the name famous.

A Tulsa Childhood Forged in Adversity

Susan Eloise Hinton entered the world on July 22, 1948, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, into a household marked by hardship. Her father, Grady, worked as a door-to-door salesman and was a man she later described as extremely cold. Her mother, Lillian, labored in a factory and was both physically and emotionally abusive; at one point she hurled one of young Susan's early manuscripts into a trash burner, though she permitted the girl to pull it back out. The family also attended what Hinton recalled as a fundamentalist, hellfire-and-brimstone congregation, an experience that drove her away from organized religion for the rest of her life.

The family's darkest blow came when Grady was diagnosed with a brain tumor while Susan was fifteen. He died during her junior year of high school, leaving her to navigate the loss while still finding the time to write. Despite—or perhaps because of—these early wounds, Hinton channeled her observations of working-class Tulsa life into the stories that would define a generation of young readers.

Building a Shared Oklahoma Universe

Beyond the phenomenon of The Outsiders, Hinton constructed a tightly interconnected body of young-adult fiction, all five novels set in Oklahoma and unfolding within a shared world. That Was Then, This Is Now (1971) follows two close friends, Byron and Mark, whose bond is shattered when they stumble into the world of drug dealing. Rumble Fish (1975) centers on Rusty-James, a high-schooler whose worship of his older brother curdles into jealousy and heartbreak. Tex (1979) tracks a reckless teenager navigating a troubled family, and Taming the Star Runner (1988) rounds out the series as the only one never adapted to the screen.

By 1982 the four novels had collectively surpassed ten million copies in print. In the 1990s Hinton pivoted toward younger readers, publishing the picture book Big David, Little David and the novella The Puppy Sister, both in 1995. Then in 2004 she crossed into adult fiction with Hawkes Harbor, a novel that embraced strong language and sexual content her earlier work had avoided, followed by the short-story collection Some of Tim's Stories in 2007. She has also experimented with screenwriting, continuing to push her craft well past the boundaries of her original genre.

The Private Life Behind the Initials

Despite a career that made her a household name, Hinton has always guarded her personal world fiercely. She describes herself as an introvert who has stepped away from public appearances entirely. In Tulsa, where she and her husband reside, she spends her days reading Jane Austen, Mary Renault, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, taking classes at the local university, and riding horses in both dressage and jumping. She has even admitted to the pleasure of writing fan fiction.

Her marriage to David E. Inhofe, a software engineer she met in a freshman biology class at the University of Tulsa, proved to be a lifeline during a period of writer's block and depression that followed The Outsiders. He encouraged her to commit to just two pages a day, a discipline that eventually produced That Was Then, This Is Now. Their son Nicholas David was born in Tulsa in August 1983. On the professional side, Hinton served as location scout and landed small cameo roles in three of the four film adaptations of her novels, and in 1988 she became the inaugural recipient of the American Library Association's Margaret Edwards Award, honoring her cumulative contribution to writing for teenagers.

Reader's Guide

Hinton's young adult novels include The Outsiders (1967), That Was Then, This Is Now (1971), Rumble Fish (1975), Tex (1979), and Taming the Star Runner (1988). Her children's books are Big David, Little David (1995) and The Puppy Sister (1995). Her adult fiction includes Hawkes Harbor (2004) and Some of Tim's Stories (2007). She also wrote the script for the film adaptation of Rumble Fish with Francis Ford Coppola and had cameo roles in three of the four film adaptations of her YA novels.

Did You Know?

• By 1982, her four novels had sold over 10 million copies.
• Hinton enjoys writing fan fiction, as revealed in an interview with Vulture.
• She has cameo roles in The Outsiders (as a nurse), Tex (as a typing teacher), and Rumble Fish (as a sex worker).