ALI IN WONDERLAND

Comedienne Wentworth revisits her privileged and precocious early years.

In this satirical dissection of class and privilege, the author, daughter of President Ronald Reagan’s social secretary Muffie Cabot, mines a childhood spent among America’s elite. By the time she landed a role on the sketch show In Living Color, Wentworth had already put on vaudevillian after-dinner performances for Henry Kissinger. As a socialite in training, she keyed into a number of important life lessons—e.g., “There’s a fine line between WASP victuals and white-trash cuisine.” Wentworth’s glib take on America’s social hierarchy might initially seem like a blue blood’s guide to slumming it, but her savvy understanding of what she’s been given versus what she’s earned makes for a sharp critique of class and power. She probes her marriage to former political operative and current TV newsman George Stephanopoulos for insights about pregnancy, child-rearing and compromise. Her understated prose and deadpan humor go a long way toward making this account of life among the one-percenters easy to swallow. If readers aren’t taken with her charm, they’d be well advised to follow her mother’s catch-all advice: “Just go to the Four Seasons.” Nothing’s better than blocking out the world behind silk curtains, sinking into crisp linen sheets and ringing for tea and crumpets. Wentworth would likely suggest the same remedy to readers who aren’t immediately enamored with her collection of vignettes. She’d be winking slyly as she did, though.

A smart, often-funny memoir.