Teenage Wasteland

Originally published in Seventeen Magazine in 1983, “Teenage Wasteland” is a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Tyler, known for her realistic portrayal of the lives of ordinary people. This guide is based on the short story as it appears in the 2020 Vintage Shorts Kindle edition.

It is some time in the early 1970s when Mr. Lanham, the principal of a private school, brings homemaker Daisy Coble in to tell her that her son Donny is inattentive and disruptive at school. At Mr. Lanham’s suggestion, Daisy supervises Donny’s homework from then on. Daisy is astonished at the poor quality of Donny’s work and his lack of effort. Donny is either uncommunicative with his parents or overtly angry and dismissive of them, making the task even more thankless.

Two months later, Mr. Lanham meets with both Daisy and Matt, Daisy’s husband, to let them know that Donny’s grades have improved slightly, but Donny is now skipping class, breaking into lockers, and drinking off campus during the school day. The news convinces Daisy that she and Matt are failures at parenting and middle-class expectations in general. To make matters worse, Daisy is not attending as much to her daughter,

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