The Outsiders, chapter 1-2

Ponyboy leads us into his world of teenage angst amidst the tumbleweed of a dusty mid-western town in the 60s. It's a sterotypical oxymoronic story of hope against reality as Ponyboy's gang known as the Greasers try to survive in a world where their opposites and betters the Socs seem to rule the day. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending upon your viewpoint, Ponyboy isn't one of the usual Greaser gang members; he reads, does well in school, and can actually converse with Soc girls without insulting them or scaring them off. We soon learn that steroptyping people is a dangerous and entirely misleading exercise in human insecurity that threatens to doom the Greasers and the Socs to a life less lived and less liveable. If only they could all climb over the wall they build between themselves....