CONFESSIONS OF A PREP SCHOOL MOMMY HANDLER: A Memoir
Wade Rouse
Harmony Books
Memoir
ISBN-10: 0307382702
ISBN-13: 9780307382702

• Read an Excerpt

On any given weekday morning, rain or shine, you could find Wade Rouse in the carpool lane of Tate Academy helping to direct traffic, usher kids into school and placate the concerns of parents. Rouse was not a crossing guard or even a teacher, but the director of publicity at the prestigious mid-western school.

In his latest memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A PREP SCHOOL MOMMY HANDLER, the author of AMERICA'S BOY recounts his life at the beck and call of a few of the super rich and snobby mothers of Tate students. While publicity is ostensibly his job at Tate, Rouse soon learns that his primary responsibility is handling overly involved and not very kind mommies. For him, the carpool lane comes to symbolize his demeaning work at the school.

Rouse is clever, funny and kind, but not to himself. His low self-esteem is attractive to the ladies he dubs "the mean mommies," especially to Katherine Isabelle Ludington, or "Kitsy." Kitsy, a Tate alum and the parent to young Tate student "Mitsy," decides to become deeply involved in both the major and minor happenings on the busy Tate calender. These are the events that Rouse is generally in charge of, and somehow, over the course of the year, he ends up being her assistant. Rouse is desperate to turn her down but is unable to do so. She humiliates him, manipulates him emotionally and buys him off with expensive gifts, yet he still wonders if she in fact may be his first adult female friend.

It is not necessary to have read Rouse's first memoir, in which he talks about his childhood and young adulthood, to fully understand where he is coming from in CONFESSIONS, but it does help a little. Rouse grew up in the rural south in an eccentric but caring family. He was gay, overweight and unpopular. Later he slimmed down, came out to his family and close friends, and found true love in his partner, Gary. But the insecure boy remained deep within him, and Kitsy and the other mean mommies knew how to bring him out. Over the course of the year, with some encouragement and self-realization, Rouse garners the strength to stand up to the injustices of the carpool lane.

While a memoir, this is far from a tell-all. Kitsy is a composite of several of the women Rouse knew at the university, but most of the time that fact is easy to overlook as he draws us into the world of Tate: SUVs, vacation homes, designer labels, expendable income, free time and lots of Lilly Pulitzer pink. Overall, Rouse is far kinder to his subjects than they ever were to him.

CONFESSIONS is funny and touching, and Rouse really hits his stride when he begins to explore why he stayed on at a job that made him miserable. Full of interesting characters and told by a genuinely good guy, this is a fun and thoughtful book that is not to be missed.

    --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

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