True Prep: It's A Whole New Old World (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Lisa Birnbach's "Official Preppy Handbook" (1980) was a national best-seller, despite being a repository of in-jokes for East Coast old-money country club members. Since it's out of print and reaps a fortune on eBay, the publisher roped Birnbach into writing a 2011 version; "True Prep" revives the lists, maps, charts and goofy photo shoots of the original. Too bad it's unfunny and insular to yacht clubs. How odd that a book about contemporary preppy culture could utterly ignore the wild popularity and re-peopling of prep. Between 1980 and today, so much changed:- the 1% are now blingy and excessive, contrary to the fusty, pennywise behaviors attributed to preps in this book. Once, preps had old Volvos and beat-up canvas totes; now, car elevators and $13,000 purses. How did this happen?- the only vestige of prep nowadays is in hip-hop culture, just as Ivy fashion was appropriated and perfected by jazz men in the 1950s. The only people I see wearing madras, argyle, prep-school blazers and boat shoes are young African-American men, not WASPs.- a young person's idea of rosy, moneyed private school life comes from Kanye West and Lady Gaga, not "Chariots of Fire." Why the outdated cultural references?If you aspire to preppy or Ivy style, aspiration is all around you: scroll through the acid-bright sweater sets on the J. Crew website, listen to Miles (and covet his Bass Weejuns, worn with or without thick socks), fret over Lady Mary from "Downton Abbey," buy a ticket for a screening of "Damsels in Distress," and make sure your retro reproduction picnic basket is ready for a trip to a city park. Amid such a glut of throwbacks and big-money icons, how could this book have missed its mark? Dearest Lisa,Did the trust fund run out? Did Mummy and Daddy cut you off? Why else would you follow up "The Preppy Handbook" with this poseur of a book called "True Prep?" Your brilliance shone in your clever, tongue-in-cheek satire of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) world that you wrote about in 1980. Your Jewish perspective gave you a special vantage point to view "preppies" in their element when you attended Brown. You came, you saw, you wrote famously about their nicknames, picking the right prep school, dressing the part and the country club years. The graphics and layout of TPH illustrated the world that George H.W. Bush already knew. People who did not have ancestors who came over on the Mayflower (ahem) flocked to book stores, read the book cover to cover again and again and adopted preppy nicknames for themselves. L.L. Bean and J.Crew flourished as households all over the country clamored for the preppy lifestyle. That you followed up "The Preppy Bible" with this thrown together, no tongue-in-cheek book is, well, disappointing, dear. The layout is confusing, the fonts don't match, the topics don't flow. After a thirty year hiatus, you start by writing about Daddy's new girlfriend, hired help and gay and lesbian America. You lost me right there. Where are your manners, darling? You start from the beginning (see above: nicknames, picking the right prep school, dressing the part and the country club years), transition into discussions about the hired help and then talk about gay and lesbian America after a few martinis. Lisa, there's still time to get back into Mummy & Daddy's good graces. When they ask about "that book" you've been writing, just tell them there's no such thing, that it's an "internet hoax." Then fix them a good Bloody, and ask about their tennis game. There's hope for you yet, dear.With warmest regards,Bitsy StandishYour college roommate, Maid of Honor and Trusted Friend of 40 years
What do You think about True Prep: It's A Whole New Old World (2010)?
I only skimmed this book after reading the first few pages. It's too long to be a jokey book.
—coltonwickland
I'd love to get my hands on a copy of the Preppy Handbook circa 1980.
—cuoilennhe
I never actually laughed out loud, but it was amusing
—Hello
