Teenagers & Adolescence

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Century's Son (Knopf) by Robert Boswell.

Film critic John Powers reviews Y Tu Mama Tambien. It translates as And Your Mother Too, and it's set in Mexico.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Atonement (Doubleday) the new novel by Ian McEwan.

Film critic John Powers reviews L.I.E., an independent film about a troubled teenage boy and the older man who steps into his life. L.I.E. stands for Long Island Expressway, where the boy's mother died in an auto crash.

Cartoonist Daniel Clowes. Drawn in 1950s pop culture style, his comics are darkly humorous satires of middle class America. His graphic novel Ghost World (first published in 1993) is the basis of the new film of the same name. His first comic book series was Lloyd Llewellyn, followed by Eightball (both published by Fantagraphics Books). Clowes was the first cartoonist to contribute a comic story to Esquire annual fiction issue.

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews Ghost World.

Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. Media analyst Douglas Rushkoff examines the multi-billion dollar marketing industry aimed at teenagers in the new Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool. (Tuesday, Feb. 27th at 10 PM). Rushkoff is also the author of Coercion: Why We Listen to What They Say (Riverhead books) about how our everyday decisions are influenced by marketers, politicians, religious leaders, and other forces.

John Powers reviews the new movies "The Slums of Beverly Hills" and the re-releass of Fellini's "Night of Cabiria."

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the newest movie version of "Lolita."

Film maker Michael Uys. His latest project is Riding The Rails which he co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed. The documentary film recounts the experiences of the more than 250 thousand teenagers who left their homes during The Great Depression and hopped on trains in search for a better life.

In this part of the show...Terry Gross talks with two people who as teenagers who left home and road trains during The Great Depression. Jim Mitchell and Peggy DeHart are both featured in Michael Uys' film Riding The Rails. Mitchell was 16 years old in 1933 when he first board a train. DeHart was 15 in 1938.

Film critic John Powers reviews "Manny and Lo," a low-budget film about runway orphan sisters.

Director of the National Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition at Tufts University, Dr. Larry Brown. He directed a recent study titled "Statement on Key Welfare Reform Issues: The Empirical Evidence." It revealed the assumptions behind the Republican "Contract With America" regarding welfare reform to be wrong. He agrees reform is necessary but must be focused on the right target.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews Lorrie Moore's new novel, "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?"

TV critic David Bianculli reviews ABC's excellent new teen drama by the producers of "thirtysomething." This series premieres tonight.

Writer for the Village Voice and The Nation Pagan Kennedy. Kennedy ("Pagan" is not her real first name) has staked out a niche for herself as a "1970's survivor and devotee." Kennedy has written an investigation of that decade, seen through its artifacts and social upheaval, "Platforms: A Microwaved Cultural Chronicle of the 1970's" (St. Martins). In the 70's she says, "we inherited this idea of recycling culture.

Terry talks with a young man who has been through the program at the Camden County Youth Center, a juvenile detention center in Camden, New Jersey: Derrek Penny.

Terry talks with two young men who've been through the program at the Camden County Youth Center, a juvenile detention center in Camden, New Jersey: Eddie Budah and Derrek Penny. Budah will read some of his poetry that has appeared in the Center's newsletter, "What's Happening."

Irish author Roddy Doyle, winner of the 1993 Booker Prize for his novel "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" (Viking). Doyle taught school in Dublin for fourteen years; during that time he wrote and self-published his first novel, "The Commitments" about a band of musicians who bring soul music to Dublin. (It was made into a popular film here).

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates. The prolific writer has penned 23 novels, in addition to plays, poems, short stories and criticism. Her new novel is called "Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang,"(Dutton) about a group of high school girls who form a violent gang in upstate New York during the Fifties. Their mission is violence against men. Oates is a professor of humanities at Princeton University. Her previous book is the critically acclaimed "Black Water," nominated for the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award.