Prep, Revisited

I’ve been sort of foolish, and for that I’m embarrassed, thinking all along that a man wrote Prep. From the first chapter on, I’ve thought to myself, wow! This guy has really gotten into the head of a teenaged girl. How astonishingly on-target he is! Curtis – the name Curtis – is a guy’s name, right? It always has been in my experience.

            But here, I shall eat my green beans and rice pilaf with a bit of crow.

            Curtis Sittenfield is, of course, a woman. She wrote this fabulous book of insecurity, painful adolescence and high school drama as only a woman could. I’m sorry, guys, I can’t think like you, and you as sure as spit can’t think like I do.

            I’ve read books about girls from a man’s point of view, and I always know men have written these stories; there is a detachment. It’s not always clear what or how the detachment works itself into the text, but it does, with certainty.

How naively I read this book, not imagining for one second that the name Curtis could be this woman. I considered that it was a woman in disguise, a pen name for a young woman who wants to remain somewhat anonymous for the time being, perhaps. Each time the narrator reflects about her relationship with Cross Sugarman, for example, I considered the story must have been relayed somehow and merely transcribed by a man named Curtis. I mean, how on earth does a guy know about how a girl will pretend not to care so much because she doesn’t want to seem too girly and preoccupied with the thought of the relationship? A guy may know about this phenomenon, but would never really know how to express it, right?

I’m a silly, silly girl. I will conclude, simply, that I have had a limited realm of experience with people in general. Of course I’ve met many people with seemingly androgynous names, or cross-gendered names: Ryan for a girl, for example, or Stacy for a boy. Perhaps it is because I’ve known my fair share of male Curtises, and none of them would likely want to share their name with the likes of a girl. Possibly, it’s simply a desire of mine to believe that men can begin to relate to us women in ways we didn’t think possible previously - boy, wouldn’t that be great – and that somehow this deep chasm of emotional intelligence is beginning to shrink…but, alas, no. Curtis Sittenfield is a woman, a woman who has written a wonderful book that has made me cringe with disappointment, smile with understanding, and cry with empathy.