Book Review
Staying Gold: The Oral History of the Outsiders

I finally finished reading Staying Gold: The Oral History of the Outsiders by Danny Boy O’Connor and Jimmie Trammel. This book took me several weeks to get through, but ultimately I enjoyed it. I ended up giving it 4/5 stars overall.

Some context: I have never actually read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. It is on my TBR and I will get to it eventually. And my first exposure to learning about it was from Rob Lowe’s autobiography Stories I Only Tell My Friends (which I HIGHLY recommend!). This year I was planning a trip to NYC to see a few musicals, and I noticed there was The Outsiders musical running, which I was interested in seeing, but wasn’t really familiar with the story, so I ended up watching the movie. After viewing the “true to the book” cut I decided I needed to see the musical too. So all of that to say, when I heard Staying Gold was being published, I was intrigued to learn more about this highly influential YA classic.

I’m giving Staying Gold 4 stars because it is solid and very thorough. For the first third of the book I could almost imagine this being done as an interview-based 6 part documentary film. I enjoyed learning about how the book made its way to Francis Ford Coppola, and I really enjoyed the parts from Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, Tommy Howell, and Leif Garrett. I also found the casting directors’ and S.E. Hinton’s interviews very intriguing as well.

I did feel that the middle parts dragged a bit, and honestly I would read this as I was getting ready for bed every night, and it put me to sleep very effectively for the first two weeks of November. I wish there had been a little more about the development of the musical – I would have loved to learn more about the choreography and elemental effects during the rumble and fire scenes. These were amazing to see on Broadway. (If you get the chance to see the stage play, and if you like bluesy-musicals, I highly recommend!)

There are lots of images throughout the book, which is fantastic. Overall, I think if you enjoy The Outsiders (book, movie, or musical) I think this would be interesting to you. The bulk of the book is about the making of the movie. As someone who has lived in Los Angeles and is familiar with the Industry and what it takes to make a movie, I wouldn’t say I was surprised by much that was shared/divulged about the “making of” parts, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I think if this had been done as a documentary instead of a book I would have enjoyed it even more, and if there is an audiobook version with the original audio from the interviews, I would imagine that would be the better way to read this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.