A Stud Pack for the Housewife

In A Stud Pack for the Housewife, author Mark S. Wolin (himself an ex-teacher) makes no direct statements about education, but shows us dramatically the results of this new kind of freedom in modern American schools. The heroine, Sue Holden, is a bored and sexually frustrated young wife who finds herself inevitably and overwhelmingly attracted to the teenage boys in the neighborhood. Seemingly, she should be able to indulge her passions for them without harm for anyone concerned. In reality, this does not work out at all.

Sue does not overestimate herself, by any means, but she underestimates the knowledge and ruthlessness of the boys involved, with disastrous results for all. Pick up any current newspaper or magazine and you will read some debate about the merits or lack of merits of today's advanced educational systems. In all probability, you have neighbors who are having problems with their teenage sons or daughters because the youngsters have been allowed too much freedom. But it has taken an author of the stature of Mr. Wolin to tackle this vast concept and present it in vivid, fast-moving, narrative form, with many implicit morals for us all, even though he does not once underline them or even point to them by name. This is the true mark of a master of contemporary story-telling.