Were a reader to know nothing about S.E. Hinton, they might complete Rumble Fish thinking that she is a male author. In addition to the fact that she goes by the gender-ambiguous initials “S.E” rather than “Susan Eloise,” Hinton’s book features a male protagonist and centers on his conventionally masculine concerns about violence, identity, and his standing in relation to other men. Hinton has said that her preference for writing from a male perspective came from the fact that she “was a tomboy when [she] was young”:

Most of my friends were boys. I liked riding, hunting, playing football. I couldn't find anything to identify with in the female culture, which was pretty rigid at the time. I felt I thought like a boy. Writing from a male point of view always came easily for me; being a lazy person, I will usually take the easiest way (Sozio, Lauren. “Some of Hinton’s Stories.” Vanity Fair, 14 May 2007, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/05/hintonqanda200705. Accessed June 26, 2021).

Here, Hinton associates activity, competition, and the aggressive mode of thinking that accompanies these pursuits with masculinity.

While Hinton grew up as a girl who identified more with male culture, that is not the experience she seeks to portray in Rumble Fish.