Our Guys

The novel Our Guys, written by Bernard Lefkowitz, is a very dynamic story about the heinous actions of a dozen middle-class athletes, from a small New York suburb, against a defenseless mentally handicapped girl. Lefkowitz describes a brutal gang rape involving a baseball bat and broomhandle, which took place in this unsuspecting town, by these upstanding young group of boys, as the town would describe them. Lefkowitz looks at the incident which took place and then examines the "jock clique" sub-culture that allowed such atrocities to happen, and spawned the scandal to cover it up.
The town of Glenridge is at the surface not any different than any other surburban American town. Like most towns it has its "cliques" and the "jocks" are at the pinnacle of the town. Idolized by the students and a sourse of pride for the entire town, however the Glenridge boys were not like most high school athletes. The "Jock clique" formed at a very early age,and invaded their surroundings taking over where ever they went, whether it be school, games or around town, protected by the "boys will be boys" attitude held by the rest of the town.
The boys started showing signs of beligerance as early as elementary school, with a common ignorance for authority. The group was later easily passed through middle school to relieve the teachers of another year enduring the "problem" class. Once in high scholl the boys became the leaders of the school, andpride of the town. In Glenridge sports were valued higher than academics, turning these young men into heroes
, and everyone else into nobodies. There was not anything anyone could do to derail this movement, nor did they try to.
Glenridges attitude towards women was very outdated. Women were regarded as mothers and wives, their jobs weere to make the men of the town happy. They were treated as objects and rarely held positions of authority-there were not any women mentors, therefore everyone lokked up to their fathers and saw