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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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Prep by
Curtis Sittenfeld |
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Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Class Curtis Sittenfeld’s
debut novel, Prep,
takes readers inside life at a prestigious East Coast boarding school. Since
she teaches at such a school, readers may assume that she knows of what she
speaks. Protagonist Lee Fiora arrives at Ault
school from Here’s
an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 3, “Assassin,” pp. 66-71: FRESHMAN SPRING I met Conchita
Maxwell in the spring, on the first day of lacrosse practice. When Ms.
Barrett told us to split into pairs and toss a ball, I watched as the girls
around me turned to each other, murmuring and nodding. It had become a ritual
in sports and in class—the time when everybody divided, and I had no one to
divide with. Then the coach or teacher would say, “Is anyone not paired up?”
and I and one or two other students would meekly raise our hands. “Hey,” said a voice behind
me. I turned and saw Conchita. “Want to be
partners?” I hesitated. “Take ten minutes,” Ms.
Barrett called out. “Just get the feel of throwing and catching.” “Let’s go over there.” Conchita pointed to a corner of the field a few feet from
where the woods began. Though I hadn’t yet responded to her offer, it was
clear to both of us I wasn’t going to receive another one. “By the way,” she
said, “I’m Conchita.” “I’m Lee.” “I’ve never played
lacrosse before,” she said cheerfully. I’d never played, either— in fact, I
had purchased my stick less than an hour before, in the school store, and it
smelled like leather and new metal—but I said nothing. Though Conchita
and I had never spoken, I already knew who she was. In fact, I’m sure
everyone at Ault knew who she was, mostly because of how she dressed. She was
a skinny girl with a large pile of short black puffy hair and dark skin, and
I’d first noticed her in the dining hall several months back, in purple clogs,
a pair of tights with horizontal purple and red stripes, purple culottes
(they might have been knickers—I wasn’t certain), and a red blouse with a
huge ruffly collar. The final accessory was a
purple beret, which she’d set at a jaunty angle. I had thought at the time
that she resembled a member of a theater troupe specializing in elementary
school visits. For lacrosse practice, Conchita
looked slightly more conservative—she was wearing a chartreuse tank top,
white shorts, and chartreuse knee socks, which she’d actually pulled up to
her knees. Apparently a hat enthusiast, she sported an Ault baseball cap
with a still-stiff brim; the cap made me wonder if~ after all, she was trying
to fit in rather than to stand out. As we walked, Conchita sneezed three times in a row. I considered saying
Bless you to her, then didn’t. She pulled a tissue from
the pocket of her shorts and blew her nose loudly. “Allergies,” she said. It
was early April then, just after spring break, a perfect afternoon of cobalt
sky and bright sun. “You name it, I’m allergic to it.” I didn’t try to name
anything. “Grass,” Conchita said. “Pollen, chlorine, mushrooms.” “Mushrooms?” “If I eat one, I break out
in hives for up to a week.” “That sucks,” I said, and
I could hear in my own voice not a meanness,
exactly, but a lack of deference. We positioned ourselves
ten yards apart. Conchita set the ball, a rubbery
white globe like the egg of some exotic creature, in the webbing of her stick
and thrust the stick forward. The ball landed in the grass several feet to my
left. “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” she said. I scooped up the ball and
propelled it back; it landed even farther from her than her shot had from me. “I take it you’re a Dylan
fan,” Conchita said. “Huh?” “Your shirt.” I looked down. I was
wearing an old T-shirt of my father’s, pale blue with the words The Times
They Are A-Changin’ across the front in white
letters. I had no idea where he’d gotten it, but he’d worn it to jog in, and
when I’d left for Ault I’d taken it with me; it was very soft and, for a few
weeks, it had smelled like home. “You realize that’s one of
his most famous songs, right?” Conchita said. “Yeah,” I said. “Right.”
At Ault, there was so much I didn’t know. Most of it had to do with money
(what a debutante was, how you pronounced “I’m sure you’ve heard the
song,” Conchita said, and she began to sing. “Come
gather round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you
have grown and . . . I can’t
remember the next part. . .something something something . . . if your time to you is worth saving.”
To my surprise, she had a pretty voice, high and clear and unselfconscious. “That does sound kind of
familiar,” I said. It didn’t sound familiar at all. “It’s sad to see what’s
happened to Dylan, because he had such a powerful message back in the
sixties,” Conchita said. “It wasn’t just music to
make out to.” Why, I wondered, would
music to make out to be a bad thing? “I have most of his
stuff,” Conchita said. “If you want to, you can
come by my room and listen.” “Oh,” I said. Then,
because I didn’t want to either accept or decline the invitation, I said,
“Here,” as I flung the ball. It went far beyond her, and I added, “Sorry.” She scurried after the
ball, then sent it back. “We probably won’t have to
go to the away games. I’ve heard that when it’s a big team, sometimes Ms.
Barrett lets the people who aren’t that good stay on campus. No offense, of
course.” “I haven’t heard that,” I
said. “Maybe it’s just wishful
thinking. But I could really use the time.” To do what? I thought. I knew Conchita
didn’t have a boyfriend—only about twelve people in our class of seventy-five
ever dated, and they always went out with each other—and I didn’t think Conchita had many friends, either. The only person I
could remember seeing her with was Martha Porter, a red-haired girl from my
Latin class on whose last test the teacher had written across the top—I’d
seen this because Martha and I sat side by side—Saluto,
Martha! Another marvelous performance! On the same test, I had
received a C minus and a note that read Lee, I am concerned. Please talk
to me after class. “Lacrosse was originally
played by the Huron Indians,” Conchita said. “Did
you know that?” “Yes.” “Really? You knew that
already?” The fib had slipped out
spontaneously; when pressed, I found it difficult to lie on purpose.
“Actually,” I said, “no.” “It dates back to the
1400s. Makes you wonder how it became the favorite game of East Coast prep
schools. You’re from I wasn’t sure how she knew
where I was from. In fact, I knew that she was from Texas, but I knew this
only because, in addition to reading old yearbooks, I regularly perused the
current school catalog, where everyone’s full names and hometowns were
printed in the back: Aspeth Men-weather
Montgomery, Greenwich, Connecticut. Cross “I bet people don’t play
lacrosse in “Things are different on
the East Coast.” I tried to sound noncommittal. “That’s an
understatement.” Conchita laughed. “When I got
here, I thought I’d landed on another planet. One night the dining hall was
serving Mexican food, and I was real excited, and then I show up and the
salsa is, like, ketchup with onions in it.” I actually remembered this
night—not because of how the food had tasted, but because I had spilled that
very salsa on my shirt and sat for the rest of dinner with a red stain just
below my collarbone. “My mom is Mexican,” Conchita said. “I’m spoiled by her cooking.” This actually did interest
me. “Is your dad Mexican, too?” I asked. “No, he’s American. They
met through work after my mom immigrated. And I have two half-sisters, but
they’re way older. They’re, like, adults.” For the first time, I
caught the ball in my webbing. “Nice job,” Conchita said. “So do you like it here?” “Yeah, of course.” “What do you like about
it?” “I think that’s a really
weird question,” I said. “Do you not like it or something?” Conchita appeared unruffled by my rudeness.
“Hmm.” She set the tip of her stick against the grass, like a cane. “I can’t
tell if we’ve decided to be honest. At first, I thought you and I were going
to. I’d gotten the impression you weren’t the same as everyone else, but now
I’m thinking I might’ve been wrong.” She seemed perhaps a little sad but
still not angry, not at all—she was a lot slyer than I’d given her credit
for. “Since we’ve never met,” I
said, “I don’t know how you could have any impression of me.” “Please, Lee. You’re not
going to act like we don’t all have ideas about each other, are you?” The remark shocked me.
Certainly, I had ideas about other people, but Conchita
was the first person I’d encountered who seemed to have ideas about me.
Besides, in spite of my zest for gathering information about other students,
I would never have revealed what I’d learned to the people whom it concerned;
I knew enough to know that if, say, over dinner you said to some guy you’d
never spoken to before, Yeah, you have a sister who went to Ault, too,
right? She could have gamed me in this moment in the way that I was gaming her,
but she didn’t. “I have a hard time believing you like it here,” she said.
“That’s the first thing.” She hoisted her stick into the air again and shot
the ball forward, and it thunked against the ground
midway between us. “You’re always walking around with your head down. Or at
roll call, you just study and don’t talk to people.” Abruptly, I felt myself
sink into another mood. I didn’t retrieve the ball but just stood there, with
the base of my stick propped against my right hip — not the right way, not even the right
side, to hold it, I later learned — and
stared at the manufacturer’s logo painted over the aluminum. “You seem thoughiful,” Conchita said.
“And I don’t see how any thoughiful person couldn’t
have some problems with this school.” I have always found the
times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad; I suspect the
pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most
daily encounters. That reminder that it can be different, that you need not
go through your life unknown but that you probably still will—that is the
part that’s almost unbearable. “Maybe we’re alike,” Conchita said. I looked up. I wasn’t sure
I wanted to make this leap. “I’ve always thought, I bet
I could be friends with her,” Conchita said. “You
know how you just get that feeling? But if I’m wrong, you can tell me.” I thought of the day she’d
worn the beret, its bright purple woolly fabric; if I had noticed it, surely
other people had. Then I thought of how my life at Ault was a series of
interactions and avoidance of interactions in which I pretended not to mind
that I was almost always by myself. I could not last for long this way,
certainly not for the next three years; I’d been at Ault only seven months,
and already, my loneliness felt physically exhausting. But then the whistle
blew—Ms. Barrett was summoning us—and in the shifting activity, I managed not
to give Conchita an answer. Perhaps I read Prep
too close on the heels of I
Am Charlotte Simmons. Sittenfeld’s writing
doesn’t come close to Tom Wolfe. For what she does in Prep,
it comes across as interesting. Typical of the coming of age high school
years, Lee seems childish at times and very mature at other times. I had to
keep reminding myself that this was high school, probably because, in my naiveté,
I expected more innocence from 13 year olds. Prep
may be particularly interesting to prep school alums, who may conclude that plus ca change, plus c’est
le meme chose. Those readers with children away at school will want to
phone and visit soon. Steve Hopkins,
March 23, 2005 |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the April 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Prep.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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