That Was Then, This Is Now

Literary fiction

First published: 1971
Print length: 159 pagesPuffin Books, 1998

Description

In 1960s Tulsa, Bryon and Mark have grown up less like friends than brothers, sharing a home after Mark loses his parents and relying on each other through fights, schemes, and hardship. Their closeness begins to change as Bryon dates Cathy and imagines a future beyond their old routines. At home, repeated hospital stays for Bryon’s mother deepen the family’s financial trouble, yet neither boy can find steady work. Then Mark begins producing money he cannot explain. At the same time, Bryon and Cathy search for her missing brother, M&M, whose disappearance may be connected to drugs. When Bryon discovers that Mark is selling them, loyalty becomes a moral choice with permanent consequences. The novel examines how growing up can turn unquestioned devotion into judgment, responsibility, and loss.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Direct · Spare

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Earnest · Melancholic · Reflective · Tense

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

AddictionComing of ageCrime and punishmentFamilyFriendshipMorality

About S. E. Hinton

S. E. Hinton is an American writer whose best-known work centers on adolescents negotiating poverty, unstable families, and the demands of friendship. Her young adult novels stay close to their protagonists, using direct, conversational prose and swiftly developing conflicts to show judgment taking shape under pressure. In The Outsiders, Ponyboy’s searching narration moves between gang violence, class resentment, and moments of recognition across Tulsa’s social divide. That Was Then, This Is Now places a close friendship inside a tightening plot of financial strain, disappearance, and drug dealing, until loyalty becomes inseparable from moral choice. Hinton also varies her structures and settings. Rumble Fish frames Rusty-James’s troubled youth as a recollection prompted by a later meeting, while Tex shifts to rural Oklahoma and a household held together uneasily by two brothers. Fights, flights, and family crises give these novels momentum, but their attention remains on how young people interpret loyalty, freedom, and responsibility with incomplete knowledge. Hinton later extended her range to children’s books and screenwriting.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Puffin Books
Language: English
ISBN: 9780140389661

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