Where The Boys Are — Glendon Swarthout

One spring break in 1959, Professor Glendon Swarthout took off with a bunch of his English Honors students from Michigan State University as they motored south from the winters' chill to the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to soak up some sun, sand, suds, and sex. What he found there during two weeks of research became the basis of one of the funniest collegiate novels of all time. But let's leave it to the narrator, Merritt, who describes herself as five feet nine in heels, weighing in at 136 lbs. My statistics are 37-28-38. I wear an eight and a half B shoe. I may not be feminine but I am damn ample. We all are. It is ridiculous nowadays for girls to be seductive. Companies go on about advertising creams and mists and gossamer underthings when what we should really be in the market for is stuff like electric razors and Charles Atlas courses and jock straps, etc.Merritt further describes what her book is about -- Why do they (college kids)come to Florida? Physically to get a tan. Also, they are pooped. Many have mono. Psychologically, to get away. And besides, what else is there to do except go home for spring break and further foul up the parent-child relationship? Biologically, they come to Florida to check the talent. You've seen those movie travelogues of the beaches on the Pribilof Islands where the seals tool in once a year to pair off and reproduce. The beach at Lauderdale has a similar function. Not that reproduction occurs, of course, but when you attract thousands of kids to one place there is apt to be a smattering of sexual activity.Where The Boys Are was much more than a novel, it became a national phenomenon! This NY Times bestseller, which was well-reviewed in almost every national publication, who then sent reporters down to south Florida the next spring to cover this annual college pilgrimage and beach bash they'd somehow overlooked, including the riots which occurred in spring of '61 in Lauderdale. MGM quickly snapped up the film rights and turned this college tale into the biggest grossing, low-budget film in the fabled history of that studio. The title Where The Boys Are moved into the national lelxicon; Connie Francis' theme song became her biggest selling record ever; and the novel and film became the grandmother of all the week-long MTV Live Spring Breaks to follow. Countless college kids have gone on spring break to Mexico, the Colorado River, south Padre Island, Bermuda and islands of the Caribbean, but south Florida and especially Ft. Lauderdale are the granddaddies of spring breaks they all remember from a few spring weeks of their misspent youth! Where the Boys Are in both the famous novel and film is the touchstone of that fun occasion for many, many college kids across America and should surely be in your entertainment collection as a keepsake of those sunny, beery days of yesteryear.Here's few more great book reviews....Swarthout's mastery of contemporary college argot is complete,and he apparently knows what students today think and feel. This quite possibly will be the funniest new book by an American this year. In fact, Swarthout may be the long sought new American major humorist. Like most major humorists he has a sense of social satire. Kansas City Star Where The Boys Are is a savage, brilliant, screaming funny satire. Diana Gillon, Sunday Times of London