Honestly, She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Wick debuts with a vulnerable if antiquated chronicle of her struggles as a young woman facing down the social pressures of Reagan-era Washington, D.C. The daughter of United States Information Agency director Charles Wick, the author grew up in California with the Reagans as close family friends. Wick focuses mostly on the period following the early 1980s disintegration of her marriage to the son of the House minority leader. Newly single, she began working at a lobbying firm thanks to her father’s connections, a nepotistic hire she has reservations about (“I didn’t do anything to get this job”). From there, the memoir morphs into a tour of claustrophobic D.C. networking events—meals at the Ritz-Carlton, lobbying at the Congressional Club, galas at the Hirshhorn Museum. At these swanky get-togethers, Wick reflects on her feelings of being “trained my whole life to look the part, but not speak the part” and her powerlessness to escape her father’s shadow. While Wick’s inability to come into her own is poignantly explored, the memoir nonetheless comes off as a dated product of a time when divorce was stigmatized and when a transgression like taping fellow government officials without permission, as Wick’s father did, counted as a potentially career-destroying scandal. Unable to bridge the gap between the world of 1980s D.C. and today, this doesn’t offer much fresh insight. (Apr.)