# American Youth

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/phil-lamarche/american-youth/9780340938041

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/phil-lamarche/american-youth/9780340938041.json

![American Youth](https://quivercdn.com/covers/sceptre/phil-lamarche/american-youth_978-03-4093-804-1.jpg?v=2026-05-16%2012%3A52%3A16)

- Book: [American Youth](https://www.bookquiver.com/phil-lamarche/american-youth) ([American Youth.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/phil-lamarche/american-youth.md))
- Authors: [Phil LaMarche](https://www.bookquiver.com/phil-lamarche)
- Publisher: sceptre
- ISBN: 978-03-4093-804-1
- Published: 2008-03-20
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

In this taut and powerful novel, a young teenager is confronted by a terrible moral dilemma following a firearms accident at his home. Coerced by his mother to lie about his role in the incident, he finds he has nonetheless earned the admiration of a sinister group of boys at his school - calling themselves 'American Youth', they subscribe to a twisted notion of traditional, puritanical values. As he gets sucked into their orbit, and entangled with the girlfriend of the group's leader, he struggles to hold on to a sense of right and wrong. Set in a New England town riven by social and ideological tensions - as newcomers encroach on an old rural culture - this is a classic portrait of a boy's rites of passage in an America ill at ease with itself.