(Ten Thousand) Saints (and sinners): A tale of moral turpitude - and redemption -

Are they for real? I'm not sure I accept as a concept the idea of the "straight edge" gang of musicians and followers in Eleanor Henderson's novel "Ten Thousand Saints." Maybe there was such a group in the late '80s, but it's hard to buy the central premise that these guys were basically thugs in pursuit of peace, zealots in pursuit of freedom: this band of misfits has one thing bonding them, a commitment to clean and ascetic life, they give up drugs, alcohol, meat, and, for the truly devout, sex, and to some degree follow the teachings of Krishna - but at heart they're still punk kids of Vermont of thereabouts and they get into streetfights and they attack others in crude ways: spraying urine on a barbecue in process (that'll get 'em to give up meat!) and cutting through a barbed-wire fence to (try to) liberate some Vermont cows. I guess it's possible, but it strikes me more as a far-fetched writer's concept. To her credit, Henderson seems, in the 2nd half of this novel, intent on working her way out of a box - the first half we are oppressed by the complete moral turpitude of the young people we meet, and of their irresponsible parents, but the 2nd half of the novel, whether credible or not, is a tale of redemption - or so it seems. Henderson's skill at conveying amorality makes it all the harder for her to sell us on salvation.