Don't Cry for Me Philips-Andover ...

If you're like me, a product of the public schools, you probably share one of my favorite pastimes: making fun of kids who went to private school. And yet we were totally negligent in making fun of Prep School kids, probably because their universe was so far removed from our own; we might as well have tried our hand at lampooning those dweebs who live on Mars. Well, now there are no shortage of literary insights into the dumping grounds for elite dilettantes. New York Magazine reports on the new trend of the boardingsroman "written by people with ambisexual ... “family” names". Aparently a new crop of writers have quit their day jobs to work full time on these novels so that the rest of (non-Boarding School) America can feel their pain. "It’s such a secretive subculture,” says Jardine Libaire [aspiring writer] “but statistically, boarding schools produce many decision-makers. The story of boarding school is the story of our country.” Excuse me for one minute while I shove my finger down my throat and make gagging noises. Is this just another case of Cupcake being jealous of yet another moron who got a book deal before her? Perhaps. But in the mean time, if I want insight into the culture of exclusive schools, I'll stick to Stephen Fry's Revenge (published in the UK under the title The Tennis Balls of the Stars) or Tobias Wolff's Old School.