Lost Boys:
 Why Our Sons Turn Violent & How We Can Save Them
 James Garbarino, Ph.D.
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1999 The Free Press/Simon & Schuster Inc. NY USA
 ISBN: 0684859084
 
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25 years as a psychologist working in the trenches with boys & adolescents has convinced this author that boys everywhere really are angrier & more violent than any generation before. Why young men & boys have become so vulnerable to violent crimes & why lack of adult supervision is putting our sons at risk.

What a tough book Lost Boys was for me to read. I find it fascinating that boys will "act out" in violence against others whereas young girls will cause violence to themselves.

In Part One: How Boys Get Lost: Dr. Garbarino explains his field work, draws portraits of boys incarcerated for murder & lists the downward steps these boys stumble when no guiding hand is there to steady them, to give them direction, to offer help.

Dr. Garbarino has written an absorbing, eloquent & worthy read about boys in general in this society & also about some specific sons. It is so withering to realize how inarticulate these youngsters are, how they speak in truncated shorthand & how deadened are their emotions.

In Part Two: What Boys Need: Dr. Garbarino takes his own childhood as an example of the exemplary self he presented to his family, school & world while within the Dark Side would exert its influence by provoking him to imagine the "perfect crime" such as murder when he bicycled through other people's neighborhoods. Dr. Garbarino figures that what kept him from acting on his imaginings was the world in which he lived, a world where people cared for him, offered positive activities at school & in his community. All the anchors absent in the lives of Lost Boys.

Dr. Garbarino offers reminiscents, ironic stories from real life & verbatim interviews with Lost Boys. He also offers insights, connections & information on the overall epidemic of this toxic syndrome of violence among our sons.

I didn't start Dr. Garbarino's Lost Boys expecting quick fixes, magical mantras or goodness plucked miraculously from boys gone bad. Anyone expecting this will be disappointed. This is a pensive read filled with imagery, ideas & nuances which will have me pondering on & on as I watch our Lost Boys struggling for acceptance, guidance & affection.

More from James Garbarino, Ph.D.:
Troubled Youth, Troubled Families with C. Schellenbach, J. Sebes & associates
The Psychologically Battered Child: Strategies for Identification, Assessment, and Intervention with E. Guttmann & J. W. Seeley
What Children Can Tell Us with F. Stott & Associates
Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment.
(05/07/00)
Rebecca