Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew

As a frequent guest columnist for The New York Times, Patti Davis has distinguished herself as a contemporary storyteller. Far from being the enfant terrible she was once portrayed to be, Davis here turns an honest yet empathetic eye toward her parents, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, combining bittersweet recollections—of her father, the eternal lifeguard, who saved 77 people from drowning yet failed to create a coherent AIDS policy, and of her mother, who never escaped the torture chamber of her own youth—with comedic scenes as if plucked from a sitcom as she describes marrying her yoga instructor at the Hotel Bel-Air, hiding her marijuana stash from the FBI and constantly evading the Secret Service. An inherently wise work about a family finally reunited through Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Dear Mom and Dad will be readily appreciated by any adult grappling with the legacy of a troubled childhood.