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A review by P.E. Logan
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Did parody get any funnier than the 1980 blockbuster, The Official Preppy Handbook? Lisa Birnbach and fellow plaidÂ-clad alumni from the Ivies burst through the mudroom doors 30 years ago with a tongue-in-cheek trade paperback that extolled the inner workings of the gin and tonic set (in both the senior and junior divisions).
It was a rollicking work of humor replete with illustrations for wannabes who needed tutorials on how to affect the prep lifestyle. In the eighties that mattered a great deal. Succession was in the firmament. It wasn’t true, but it seemed like it then, that non-Ivy souls were left out on the stoop like muddied L.L. Bean Hunting Boots.
It’s possible Ms. Birnbach has only now recovered from the colossal success of the first Preppy Handbook, in time for the publication of a followup, True Prep, which she wrote with Chip Kidd, the renowned book designer.
The original Preppy Handbook satire was a smashing success because of its originality. The audience was built-in, made up of millions of preppies, happy to laugh (knowingly) at their world. Anyone else who peered over the fence could use the book as a Fodor’s guide on the tribalism of adult men and women with headbands and pinky rings. Ms. Birnbach was brilliant as the point person for the book, leaving no publicity stone unturned. She even brought her squash racket to radio interviews on the promotional tour. It all worked like a quality blender. It whirled.
And while this is a hard act to follow three decades later, True Prep is witty like its parent book and as lighthearted as the topic demands.
After all, what kind of an adult marches around in velveteen flats with opposing griffons embroidered on the tops of his shoes? Why, an Andover man! An Eli! A disciple of Hampden-Sydney! Or, as in the case of prepdom, a straight dude who just loves velveteen flats. (Yo — it’s in the genes.) How can this not tickle your comedy central nervous system, especially in a post Lehman Brothers world?
Updated for these times, True Prep has expanded the breath of the WASP world with sections on blended and extended families as multi-divorces and re-re-marriages add new leaves to kitchen tables from Bar Harbor to Palm Beach. There’s a section on black preps now that Obama (certainly a prep prez) moved to the coolest address in the prep world. Illustrations of what to wear now (web belts, Top-Siders, embroidered pants), revise the 1980s list of what to wear (web belts, Top-Siders, embroidered pants). A well done joke.
The authors chip away at the mandatory veneer as today’s prep families force glee when the modern world encroaches and co-habitation rules now include same-sex and trans-global (formerly, N.O.K.D.) relationships and family members. An homage to the late, great prep icon Brooke Astor brings up the question of what to do when you predecease your pet, definitely a toss and turn issue for animal-loving prep families who board their young while the horses stay home. (To be fair, some families do send both kid and colt.)
There has to be some type of drinking game associated with who went to a prep school or later on to the Ivies, Seven Sisters or one of the newly inducted preppy colleges (the category has been generously expanded in True Prep to include places like Colgate). If that game exists, and if not re-imagine Puffy’s Bar and make it up yourself, this book will help you win big. In chapters titled “The True Prep Pantheon” and “Yes, They Did” you’ll glean that indeedy-do Trey Anastasio, Bob Balaban, David Crosby, Lady Gaga and Vin Diesel all prepped. (I told you this is a fun-to-read book.)
Ms. Birnbach is a gifted humorist. Think of her as “Woody Allen meets Thorstein Veblen over a Southside Cocktail at the Creek Club.” She and her original co-authors cleverly bent the theories on American class structure and mores as they punned on the symbols and bastions of WASP culture. This is the aim in True Prep even though it’s hard to open up that wacky can of “Mixed Nuts” twice — you’re prepared on a second viewing for the coiled snake to spring forth. But, like a favorite hotel, you love going back. Who isn’t in the mood for a chapter called “The Timeline: What Happened In The Last Thirty Years†ala the prep-Gregorian? I can tell you, Martha Stewart’s entries brings a new meaning to court dates, which used to mean a clay surface and a racket.
The book is a cloth-bound amuse-bouche, a quick bite presented for your enjoyment. The photographs are a hoot and insiders to the world of publishing will find many of the staff from Knopf posing as models and sporting classic prep outfits. (It’s so prep-thrifty to use friends and leave Tyra Banks alone!) There is a rather fetching shot of Russell Perreault, the publicity director of Vintage, wearing a classic prep blazer so loud it needs speakers.
While a recession may not seem like the perfect time to bring out this book, preps would never let the bad times get them down and neither should you. You may not have St. Paul’s in the family, but you can live vicariously, and hilariously, as if you did with True Prep.
P.E. Logan is a communications and marketing professional and a writer in New York. She worked at various adult trade publishing houses including Random House, Putnam, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster for almost three decades. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post and in other periodicals.