That Was Then, This Is Now
Bryon and Mark have been brothers in everything but name since Mark's parents killed each other when he was nine, and Byron's mother took Mark in. They hustle pool together, run the same small-city streets, protect the same kid brother of a neighbor, and expect to go on doing that forever. Then, across a single year in the late 1960s, Bryon falls for a girl named Cathy, meets her younger brother M&M as the drug scene begins to arrive in earnest, takes a real job, and slowly starts to see Mark the way an adult sees a stranger. S. E. Hinton's 1971 follow-up to The Outsiders, published when she was twenty-two, is a short, clear-eyed coming-of-age novel about the specific cost of choosing the future when the past is still a person you love.
Where That Was Then, This Is Now keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
What you might want to know about That Was Then, This Is Now
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Sixteen-year-old Bryon and his best friend Mark have grown up like brothers in the same house. Across one year of girls, drugs, and a younger boy named M and M, the bond between them slowly comes apart.
Yes, loosely. Both novels are by S.E. Hinton and set in similar Tulsa-era working-class settings. Ponyboy Curtis from The Outsiders has a brief cameo in That Was Then, This Is Now. The two stories are independent but share a world.
Yes. A 1985 film adaptation starring Emilio Estevez and Craig Sheffer was released. The film follows the novel's friendship and crime arc closely.
That Was Then, This Is Now was written by S. E. Hinton, published in 1971 by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Putnam.
That Was Then, This Is Now is 159 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, That Was Then, This Is Now takes most readers 2 to 3 hours to finish.
That Was Then, This Is Now is a standalone novel by S. E. Hinton, not part of a series.
That Was Then, This Is Now is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
