I have learned a tremendous amount from my teachers, including Bill Gifford and Laine Snowman. Most recently, at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I was privileged to study with Chris Offutt; Marilynne Robinson; Ethan Canin, who was a wonderful adviser; and Frank Conroy, who cares so much about writing and whose beliefs have been so inspiring to me. I also learned from my challenging, insightful Iowa classmates, especially Susanna Daniel and Elana Matthews, who are my dear friends, and Trish Walsh, who always told me to just keep writing.

During the time I worked on this book, I received financial assistance from the Michener-Copernicus Society of America. In addition, I literally was a given home by St. Albans School, and welcomed-so welcomed, in fact, that here I still am-by St. Albans’s students, teachers, and staff.

I have been able to support myself without working in an office only because of assignments from various magazine and newspaper editors, including Rory Evans, who has been a mentor since I was seventeen years old. Bill Taylor and Alan Webber, the founding editors of Fast Company, hired me for my first and only full-time job and continued to give me incredible writing opportunities after I moved on.

I am deeply grateful to my other friends, readers, and combinations thereof: Sarah DiMare, Consuelo Henderson Macpherson, Cammie McGovern, Annie Morriss, Emily Miller, Thisbe Nissen, Jesse Oxfeld, Samuel Park, Shauna Seliy, and Carolyn Sleeth. Matt Klam was a much-valued advocate and a sender of wacky and excellent e-mails. Field Maloney provided smart and timely editing advice. Peter Saunders brought my hard drive back from the dead and performed other feats of technological wizardry. Matt Carlson makes me happy in many cities.

Finally, of course, there’s my family: My aunt Dede Alexander has been a stylish and attentive presence for my entire life. My other aunt, Ellen Battistelli, is my most faithful reader, has at times been my only reader, and is my kindred spirit in neuroses. My sister Tiernan gracefully suffered the indiginity of being the main character in pretty much everything I wrote until the age of eighteen. My sister Jo talked through many aspects of Prep with me, including names and titles, and-when not coming over to my apartment, sitting an inch away from me, and chatting Jo-ishly-kept insisting, correctly, that I needed to finish the book. My brother, P.G., was himself in high school during the years I was writing about Lee Fiora’s high school experience, and he sagely advised me on math, sports, and matters of the heart. Lastly, for their great love, I thank my parents. I am very lucky to be their daughter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CURTIS SITTENFELD won the Seventeen Magazine fiction-writing contest at age sixteen, in 1992, and the Mississippi Review’s annual fiction contest in 1998. Her writing has appeared in Fast Company, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Real Simple, and on public radio’s This American Life. A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is the recipient of a Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award. Sittenfeld was the 2002-2003 writer-in-residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and continues to work at St. Albans as a part-time English teacher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Curtis Sittenfeld

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sittenfeld, Curtis.

Prep: a novel / Curtis Sittenfeld.

p. cm.

eISBN 1-58836-450-X

1. Teenage girls-Fiction. 2. Preparatory school students-Fiction. 3. Self-destructive behavior-Fiction. 4. Massachusetts-Fiction. 5. Indiana-Fiction. I. Title.