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Rosebud Baker wasn’t meant to be a standup comedian or a writer for Saturday Night Live. As a granddaughter of White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III (whose biography is literally called The Man who Ran Washington), she was taught the WASP golden rules: take your spankings without complaint, and your family secrets to the grave.

For a creative and sensitive kid like Rosebud this didn’t come easily, but she tried her best to be a “good Baker.” She overlooked her mom’s alcoholism and her dad’s steady retreat from the house. Since talking about problems openly wasn’t an option, she sought comfort in imagined futures, like one where she’d turn into an actual horse. But by the end of high school, her reality became too much to bear. Her parents announced their divorce, then her youngest sister died in a tragic accident. Instead of focusing on her theater studies in college she escaped into a four-year bender. That trajectory carried over into her post-grad life in New York City, where she dated the guitarist in a metal band, did odd jobs, and lived in a grimy group apartment where vodka was a staple but toilet paper was a luxury item.

Everyone’s rock bottom looks different. For Rosebud, it was a failed attempt to steal a bodega cat that finally led her to AA. In the years after she got sober, she finally decided to give stand-up a shot—something friends had long been encouraging her to do—and once she got on stage, she discovered a hidden superpower. She had stories to tell and secrets to bare that made people laugh. After working her way through open mic sets and low-level road gigs, another unexpected bonus emerged: she was pulled out of the bleak New York City dating pool and into the orbit of her future husband, fellow comedian Andy Haynes. With his unwavering love, the idea of becoming a mother—which had previously seemed far-fetched and mutually exclusive with career success—became something Rosebud suddenly wanted.

This raw and riotously funny memoir feels like an intimate conversation with a friend who starts every story with, “This might be TMI, but…” Laced with her signature dark humor, it will take you on a journey from Capitol Hill to comedy clubs, from her grandfather’s Texas home to the SNL writer’s room. With wit and honesty, Rosebud reckons with her identity as a daughter, sister, alcoholic, comedian, and mother. By laying down her years of heartache and humor, and showing how she arrived at her own version of a happy ending, she’s written one of the most unforgettable (and laugh-out-loud) memoirs of the year.