S. E. Hinton's That was Then, This is Now is a searing and terrible account of what life can be like for east-side youths in an American town—on the look out for easy money, for chicks, for drink, for the fast car to hot-wire and, sometimes, for hard drugs. This is a book which is both violent and tender, a book in which the hero, Bryon, grows from being a kid, when he "had all the answers", into a young manhood beset by questions. After a long search, he and his girl friend find her young brother high on LSD in a hippy house…. When Bryon gets home sickened by the realization that this child may never fully recover, he reaches under his buddy's mattress for a packet of fags—and finds phials of drugs instead. Should he betray his best friend who is quite obviously a...