Lack of Restraint is a poignant story of teen sexuality in 1960’s America. Dismal in its view of teenage marriage yet boldly erotic in its honest treatment of the facts of life, the novel captures a time when parents and high school administrators carefully concealed the delicate, often shameful reality of teenage pregnancy. Immature couples are removed from school, home and public view to cheap starter-homes in traditional settings where they are forced to accept adult responsibility for youthful indiscretions.

The novel revolves around Reta, an ambitious, 17-year-old girl who goes too far with her boyfriend, high school basketball star, Gerry, who impregnates then marries her at his parents’ insistence. The same unrestrained sexual passion that got her in trouble fuels Reta’s desire to escape the unbearable monotony and isolation of her trap. In this way and importantly, Lack of Restraint is a sensitive story of suppressed youth at a time before birth control and planned parenthood when social mores and controls dictated legitimate, tolerated solutions. Reta’s defiance proved symptomatic of revolutionary change of attitudes that resulted in the “generation gap” of the late 1960’s.