That’s just what keeps it on the firing line. Swindell says she teaches the book to help build cross-generational discussion of dysfunctional families and teen-age estrangement. Plus, the teen-agers in the book talk like teen-agers, which means slang and swearing. Fights between parent and child, including some harsh back talk musings about masturbation and premarital intercourse between Con and his girlfriend. Well, there’s the frank talk about suicide. But it remains unclear whether the family will. Despite problems in communicating with his harried tax attorney father and self-centered socialite mother, the boy survives. Racked with guilt over Buck’s death, the teen-ager slits his wrist and is committed to a psychiatric hospital. Published in 1976 and later made into a film that won an Academy Award for best picture, “Ordinary People” is a 263-page bestseller about 17-year-old Conrad Jarrett, who grew up pampered in suburban Chicago then lost his big brother, Buck, in a boating accident.
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