Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead End Kids

Teenage Wasteland provides memorable portraits of “rock and roll kids” and shrewd analyses of their interests in heavy metal music and Satanism. A powerful indictment of the often manipulative media coverage of youth crises and so-called alternative programs designed to help “troubled” teens, Teenage Wasteland draws new conclusions and presents solid reasons to admire the resilience of suburbia’s dead end kids.

“A powerful book.”—Samuel G. Freedman, New York Times Book Review

“[Gaines] sheds light on a poorly understood world and raises compelling questions about what society might do to help this alienated group of young people.”—Ann Grimes, Washington Post Book World

“There is no comparable study of teenage suburban culture . . . and very few ethnographic inquiries written with anything like Gaines’s native gusto or her luminous eye for detail.”—Andrew Ross, Transition

“An outstanding case study. . . . Gaines shows how teens engage in cultural production and how such social agency is affected by economic transformations and institutional interventions.”—Richard Lachman, Contemporary Sociology

“The best book on contemporary youth culture.”— Rolling Stone