REQUIRED READING
A PRIVILEGED LIFE Celebrating WASP Style by Susanna Salk
Published by Assouline, 176 pages
Reviewed by Patricia Dobashi

If you are an American of British or Northern European ancestry whose grandparents gave you blue chip stocks for your birthdays; if your mother is slimmer and more energetic than you (and extra points if she wears a pearl choker while preparing a casserole); if you were born a toe head and your hair still goes blonde during summers at Hyannis Point or Martha’s Vineyard; if have a penchant for wearing pink and green (together), madras, khakis, and grosgrain belts – and buy most of it from J. Crew; if you don’t know what socks have to do with wearing loafers; if your grandfather and dad go to the Harvard-Yale football game together; if you played lacrosse or field hockey as a kid and haven’t a clue as to what the finger-roll is in basketball, then you don’t need this book because you’re probably in it. Author, Susanna Salk, playwright, NBC Today Show contributing reporter, contributing editor for Bon Appetit, ivillage, and 1stdibs Introspective, brings the reader cheek to jowl with the American class of people known as WASPs – a social construct in which she is a member by birthright.
Shortly before I met Susanna, I was told how much I would like her, as her social C.V. was ticked-off to me by the speaker as, “She’s pretty and bright – very classy – well educated (a Vassar girl, don’t you know), accomplished and hard working, so well groomed and turned out: the perfect WASP!” I did like her immediately, as I recognized very quickly that Salk was indeed an unblemished representative of that society about which her book is entitled, A Privileged Life.

In A Privileged Life Salk neither mocks nor reveres the denizens of WASP-dom as she points out their hallmarks in much detail. Chapters include: Icons, Lifestyle, the Ivy League (where all good Wasps matriculate), Fashion, and Homes. It is hard to tell if Salk is intentionally humorous in detailing her fellow WASPs and their lifestyle choices – as nearly all the book is written with a light hand and the added anecdotes, many of which, are plainly funny. Take for example, Salk’s childhood awareness of her grandfather’s speech being vaguely like that of Thurston Howell, III from “Gilligan’s Island” although the author is quick to defend her grandmother who Salk swears was never called “Lovey.”

Another characteristic of the WASP, and not perhaps the highest of compliments, is the preferred cuisine of these Americans to the manor born. Salk opens the sub-chapter on “Food” with the only Wasp joke she knows: Q: What did the WASP go to the hospital for? A: The food. Salk goes on to say “For WASPS, food is to be eaten not savored. You serve it to keep yourself going for conversation or at sports, and not to link generations together or to take center stage.”
This accounts for their pantries being stocked with cans of tuna and vegetables, crackers, peanuts, packaged cookies, and chocolate syrup for grown-up ice cream sundaes. Familiar labels include Skippy, Pepperidge Farm, Deviled Ham, Cracker Barrel, and Betty Crocker. With these ingredients (and potable spirits) on hand, the never flustered WASP hostess can throw with ease a Sunday garden drinks party replete with the most favored cocktail of vodka, tomato juice, and beef bouillon ( and even nicer with a sprig of fresh celery stalk), called “A Bloody Bull,” recipe included on page 68.
Photographs in the book are many and illustrative – with several from the author’s own collection – which serve as both solid counterpart to the text and as it does a sentimental patina for Salk’s antecedents who happen to be a pretty swell looking lot. Although smaller than the standard coffee table book, A Privileged Life is not only a strongly alluring book that visually holds its own in a living room collection, but it’s a entertaining read that serves as a prodigious conversation starter. Keep some warm Chardonnay in plastic cups and sliced Cracker Barrel cheese and crackers standing by –ditch background music for NPR – and you’re ready for your WASP party to begin.