The main thrust of Currie’s disturbing critique about the alienation of much American youth towards their parents, their schools and the highly competitive atmosphere in which they find themselves trapped, is that being white and affluent is no longer any protection against the perils of adolescence. He is eloquent about his nation’s almost complete denial of the scale of the problem. The arguments he hears from all sides often boil down to, ‘Surely being middle class is the solution, not the problem? It doesn’t happen to our kids, it happens to … well, their kids.’
