Official Preppy Handbook

[Renita Lukins]

The Official Preppy Handbook (1980) is a satirical reference guide edited by Lisa Birnbach and written by Jonathan Roberts, Carol McD. Wallace, Mason Wiley, and Birnbach.[1] It discusses an aspect of North American culture described as prepdom. In addition to insights on prep school and university life at socially acceptable schools,[2] it illuminates many aspects of the conservative upper middle class, old money WASP society.[3] Topics range from appropriate clothing for social events to choosing the correct college and major.[4]

The book addresses "preppy" life from birth to old age, lending understanding to the cultural aspects of "preppy" life. In general, elementary and secondary school, college, and the young adult years receive the most attention. Coverage lessens during the book's latter chapters. The book was first published in 1980 by Workman Publishing.

The book also represented a resurgence of interest in preppy culture that aided the growth of retailer L.L. Bean, which the book describes as "nothing less than Prep mecca."[14] The book's expos of university life and the drug and sex culture at various schools had a significant impact on public thought about those schools.[15] The book spawned many other "official" handbooks for other American subcultures.[16]

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Where were you in 1980? I was the worst age possible for a human to be--thirteen--so that's a year I try to forget ever happened, but for Lisa Birnbach, who was not all that much older, it was a pretty good year: her book, The Official Preppy Handbook, spent most of the year near the top of the bestseller lists. As often turns out, a book that aimed to satirize a subculture ended up enshrining it, inspiring the founding of J.Crew and becoming an actual handbook for countless aspiring preps (and perhaps a few authentic ones who had mislaid their Skull & Bones pamphlet of rituals).

The book has had a life of its own ever since, and as its 30th anniversary approached, the famed book designer (the only famed book designer) Chip Kidd, a self-made prep himself, inspired Birnbach to go back to the biggest success in a career of funny writing and update the guide for a new generation of preppies. The resulting collaboration, True Prep, is an entirely new book and a very funny one in its own right, entirely rethinking the traditions of this ultratraditional culture for the age of cellphones and Obama.

I got the chance to talk to Birnbach at BookExpo a few months back (when I apparently was the first outsider to see the book in toto). She's a hoot in person, and I think you can tell that we had a good time talking about such crucial issues as the relative preppiness of our last four presidents, the relationship between pants with whales on them and irony, and the first preppy reality show: The Real Housewives of New Canaan ("Five women with various shades of blonde sitting in different parts of a room not looking at one another"). (Also, the internet being what it is, I somehow feel it's necessary to clarify that her suspicion about the president's birthplace was done in character.) You can listen below, or read the full transcript after the jump.

Amazon: So I noticed that new copies of the original Preppy Handbook are going for about $100 on Amazon.com [update: now $275!]. First of all, is that something a preppy would do? Would they sell their original copy? Or would they buy a copy on Amazon.com?

Lisa Birnbach: Definitely they would buy one on Amazon.com. Chances are that preppies would have held on to their original copies or lost them for a while, bought a new one, and then found the other one and maybe sell one, because they're tight. The funny thing is that this book, The Official Preppy Handbook, has been out of print for about 15 years. And it was selling on Amazon and other sites for in the neighborhood of $9 to $15 for a long time. And I know because I was a big customer, but because people have wanted them over the years and I've been hoarding them just to have to give to people. And now I can't afford it.

And that's a crummy condition one. The good ones and the signed ones and the boxed ones are quite expensive, and it's, I think, because of True Prep and because this is a moment in time that people are interested in returning to their sort of all-American frugal roots.

Amazon: I noticed the top customer review of the original Handbook, which was written in 2004, says, as you were saying, "Everything comes around a second time. So Lisa Birnbach, call your office. It may be time for an updated edition for today's rising BMOCs." I'm guessing that was not the story behind updating this book.

Birnbach: No. Well, yes and no. As somebody who wrote the first book, some of which--okay, take a pause--in longhand. They had invented computers. I just chose not to use one. But I did write most of it on my little portable electric typewriter, the part I didn't write on legal pads. When I met Chip Kidd, I met him through Facebook. I admired his work enormously and thought I wonder if he'll accept my friendship. I was a little new to Facebook, and I was embarrassed to write him a note. But I just sort of clicked on him, and he said, "Are you really Lisa Birnbach?" I said, "If you're Chip Kidd, I am."

Anyway, he was the one who was much more savvy in cyber culture. And he was the one who said, "People are clamoring for a new book." And I never knew. Why would I look up the Preppy Handbook online? I know what's in it. So that's really why this happened, because there was not a huge demand but enough of an interest in an update and because the times sort of require it. A lot has changed in 30 years. We're trying to stay the same. It's not always easy.

Birnbach: Yes. Well, I'm glad you said that, Tom. And also, I think you're the first civilian who's read it, so it's exciting for me to talk to you about it. We have opened the doors wider and wider. Thirty years ago, we kind of dodged the answer to, "What do you have to be to be preppy?" Do you have to be Protestant? Do you have to be white? Do you have to be a second-generation boarding-school graduate? And how long does your family have to be in America for you to be able to do all that? We dodged it because we wanted to be open and because I'm a Jewish woman from New York. So if I'm going to be it, so can everyone else.

However, now we've gone much further. We've addressed head-on African American preppies. We've addressed head-on gay preppies. We've addressed head-on even very rich people who dress terribly but have made so much money that they live in Silicon Valley. We've addressed everybody.

And we welcome them, not with an evangelical need anymore because we don't have to tell anyone what a preppy is. We have a president who is black who was born ... somewhere. We don't know, right? Maybe Africa. Maybe America. Went to Punahou, the largest prep school in America or the largest private school in America. No one needs me to define preppiness anymore, which is kind of a relief.

Amazon: ...he's the picture in the dictionary, but then his son who seemed to have a more conflicted relationship. There's Bill Clinton, who summers on the Vineyard. So how would you characterize the various incarnations of preppydom we've had in the White House?

Birnbach: That's a great question because it's kind of a joke to say that this president is a preppy as opposed to the previous. They've all been in some ways. Bill Clinton the least of all, for so many reasons. His taste in extracurricular talent for one--very not preppy, but very much like the preppy who likes the townie girl. Being a Rhodes scholar shows a kind of geekishness that's just [throat clearing]. But the two Bushs are definitionally preppies. Now, George Herbert Walker Bush is a member of our pantheon. He followed in many footsteps of family members, but changed his watchband every day. Really, throwing up in public is a very preppy thing to do. He couldn't be more prep. His dogs are prep. Millie has her own Wikipedia page so, you know, enough about that.

George Walker Bush is even more preppy in the sense that he wouldn't have gotten into Andover or Yale on his own, because he's, you know, dumb. And "The Gentlemen's C" was the title of a chapter in The Official Preppy Handbook. And giving nicknames. "Good job, Brownie, good job." He is ultimately preppy.

But then there's the Obama kind of preppy which is aspirational. Went from this kind of mixed childhood and no father and all kinds of exceptional circumstances that would not ordinarily suggest he would be a winner or a leader, and look at that. Lean, fit, smoking...

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