April at Rush Hour

For fans of Maria Semple and Bonnie Garmus, a clever contemporary women’s fiction novel about a woman who seeks refuge from her role as the US vice president’s wife—in Washington’s commuter carpool system.

April Sloan has set aside a serious academic career and her cherished privacy to support her husband, Henry—now vice president of the United States—in his political pursuits. And she’s not exactly happy about it.

Smart, lovely, and more than a little moody, April is a magnet for the media spotlight, which she loathes. Only months into her tenure as second lady, she can already feel her sanity slipping—so, in an effort to keep herself together, she slips into DC’s Sluglines, a carpool/hitchhiking hybrid that transports government workers of all sorts during their morning commutes. Chauffeuring strangers who have no idea she’s the nation’s second lady gives April something she never gets these days: a sense of peace and quiet, and even wonderment. But when Frank Doyle, a young, recently disgraced newspaper reporter, discovers her newfound pastime, she has to promise him bigger, better stories—including a missing intern, a White House scandal, and an oracle riding the Sluglines alongside them in a blue Pinto—in exchange for keeping her secret.

Full of comedic twists and with a splash of mysticism thrown in for good measure, April at Rush Hour is an incisive and entertaining tale of journalism, privacy, and the toll of public life.