For the boys, the only ticket to college comes from sports - and from there, the inevitable military service. For the girls, self-sufficiency isn't an option - the best they can dream of is marriage and children - probably with someone they've met in high school. Just like kids today, really - except with less texting.įarris points out - correctly - that the stakes are high for these kids. Kids drink, smoke, contemplate sex, have sex, regret having sex, have sex some more (with the wrong people), pose for pornography and drive getaway cars for bank robbers. The five form an awkward love pentagon - a clumsy sexual salad of self-absorption, naivete and badly-expressed horniness.Īlthough drugs are entirely absent from Harrison High, the other traditional teen problems abound. They are represented by Trent (football star and future pharmacist), Ricky (hot blond who went to Sunday school), Buddy (quarterback from the wrong side of the tracks, trying to make good for his single mom), Anne (curvy drama student who wants to make it in Hollywood) and Griff (seedy jd with the sensual lips). Although all the characters are hormonally-imbalanced, painfully egotistical and often catastrophically stupid, at least the teenagers are supposed to be that way. His love interest is the new Spanish teacher, Joanne Dietrich, who matches Hendry's defeatism with a gloriously unfounded optimism. The supposed hero (as played by Dick Clark in the film) is Neil Hendry, a new teacher/coach with a jaded attitude stemming from a war wound and a previous teaching job in a crappy location (across town).
The book has a handful of protagonists, each with their own unique perspective on Harrison High. The school still prides itself in its football team (GO LIONS!), wealthy donors (a whirlpool in the locker room!) and talented faculty.
Recent population shifts and general social malaise have conspired to make things a little edgier as of late - the school is no longer solely packed with college-bound jocks, but now has a seedy working-class, jeans-clad underbelly. Harrison High is a highly-regarded school in a traditionally upper-class neighborhood.
It is a sprawling piece of JD ('juvenile delinquency') fiction that charts the course of an entire year at any Anytown, American high school. It sold over a million copies, spawned four sequels and, in 1960, was made into a movie. Harrison High (1959) was written by John Farris at the precocious age of 23.
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