2.20.2005
They watch The OC and they can read
Wow! Who's seen today's NYTBR? Gilead is gone, but Workshop alum Curtis Sittenfeld's first novel Prep debuts at Number 11. Seventy thousand copies already in print. That "young adult" market is definitely nothing to be trifled with. I've no doubt Curtis's work stands strong on its merits, but damn, I'm envious. Nice work, Curtis.
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Curtis Sittenfeld is reading tonight at PL at 8pm. Perhaps JE can give as fine of a performance as she did with Andrew Sean Greer on Friday night - I think her first question set a new record for number of unrelated clauses. CURTIS!!! IF YOU'RE OUT THERE, DON'T STOP READING AT 24 MINUTES!!!
Also, according to the PL site, the first 25 people get the designer belt featured on the book jacket. El Gordo, I know you want one....
Julie was in fine form last night. It was like a Conjunction Junction gangbang last night, phrases and clauses ramming into each other at every opportunity. Ms. Sittenfeld helped diffuse the hot wall-to-wall non-sequitir action by giving really long (and entertaining) answers that kept Prairie Light's resident interviewer/lawn gnome at bay.
It was a very good reading. Curtis was very funny. I'll admit I was a bit skeptical about Prep, but really liked when she read last night and now look forward to reading the book.
Gushing praise from The Washington Post:
"It is an almost clinically accurate and absorbing glimpse into the daily life of an
exclusive, privileged place. People who have read "Prep" go on enthusiastically about the smells,
feelings, colors and emotional range that Sittenfeld appears to have recollected from her
Groton days -- and built on once she got to St. Albans.... Beyond the setting of PREP, the novel is
more deeply about the universal experience of being a teenager, and about learning to let go of the weirdness, the damage of having been one -- perhaps
more so than any novel in decades."
I don't know Curtis, and I never went to prep school, but we should all hope for such kind words. Good for her.
Prep was one of (now) six books I have read while down with the flu. I would recommend it if you're at all curious to remember what it was like to be in high school. Because she pretty much is able to bring back those days of confusion, alienation, and social warfare. It's so detailed and precise that I was left wondering how much of it must have really happened. It reads like a memoir. She does a great job with the retrospective narrator, allowing free reign to adolescent teenage angst while keeping the voice informed by wisdom that came later. The characters are familiar enough from one's own high school experience to make it all slightly uncomfortable, with a voyeuristic feel. Lee's insights as she grows older become more complex, as they should, and though I wasn't completely shot in the ass with the ending, which pretty much does Wes Anderson's work for him when he makes the movie, I enjoyed the book very much as a whole.
I wonder how it compares to Gilmore Girls.
Which I don't watch!
got off work early yesterday afternoon and basically read the whole thing in a day. it's good--i agree w/grendel's assessment re too-close-for-comfort on occasion. i was surprised at how fresh the material felt given that you'd think the perils of adolescence, regardless of location, would be well covered territory. worth reading, certainly.
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