“Nepo babies” create quite a flurry of debate and expectation on the internet. They’ve followed their famous progenitors into all the most fun careers: acting, singing, writing, art. They come from money, and they have money --- enough money so that they don't have to be a waiter, a barista or an Uber driver while selling their soul and maybe plasma to take a chance at a career in entertainment.

Lola Kirke is one such nepo baby. Her dad is Simon Kirke of the old-time rock bands Free and Bad Company, and her mom is Lorraine Kirke, the owner of Geminola, a stalwart boutique in the West Village. Her sisters are Domino and Jemima, the former married to Penn Badgley and the latter a cast member of “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s visual, hilarious bildungsroman. Kirke herself is the star of such films as Gone Girl and Mistress America, and Amazon’s first streaming series, “Mozart in the Jungle.” In her memoir, WILD WEST VILLAGE, she lets us in on her messy childhood, her rivalries with her beloved sisters, and a particularly pathos-filled journey from girlhood to adulthood.

"Kirke draws you in with her humor and captivating sense of self, her fears, her loves, and her attempts to be a certain kind of girl (then woman) before realizing that she is fine just the way she is."

In the old family townhouse, a steady stream of big winners in the fame game wander in and out --- Courtney Love is in one guest room, while Cuban exiles are in another. Kirke stays mum about most of the people in her life. However, when it comes to her friend Bea’s famous aunt, with whom she spends all her Easters --- the one with papery skin and a strange whisper of a voice --- she reveals that, after reading a certain collection of essays from the ’60s, the woman turns out to be Joan Didion. Sometimes we know who she is talking about because she mentions the plot of the film or show that she is working on (Gael García Berna sounds like a delight), and other times we try to figure it out.

Kirke has a very disarming, charming way of writing about her life, even when she suffers under the difficulties of discovering a half-brother with significant physical challenges later in her life, well after her dad knew that he had another child. The sequence where Kirke befriends him and his mother is a touching and emotional account of forgiving her father and enjoying the young man's company before his untimely death at 19. Kirke writes with care and humor about these passages that would rip other families apart. Instead she brings her two sisters with her, and they all form a special offshoot of their rock ‘n’ roll family.

WILD WEST VILLAGE is full of family disgruntlements --- from Kirke’s rivalry and yearning for closeness with her sisters to the casual ease with which they all seem to fall into the kinds of careers that less famous folks would find enviable. But it is her journey to becoming a country music singer-songwriter living in Nashville with the Cowboy, her singing boyfriend, that shows us how much she grows throughout the story --- from a little sister who desires to be important to her family members (who tend to ignore her) to a grown woman dealing with a for-real relationship with a man who truly adores her. More importantly, she wades through the muck of childhood anxieties into the realm of adult life, where she begins to accept herself and put down her own roots.

Kirke draws you in with her humor and captivating sense of self, her fears, her loves, and her attempts to be a certain kind of girl (then woman) before realizing that she is fine just the way she is. And although the privilege may lead to a lot of jealousy, her honesty will create a sense of what it’s like to grow up a young woman in capitalist America, tossing off the demands and expectations of other privileged people in order to find her authentic self. In WILD WEST VILLAGE, this cowgirl finds her own happy pastures and safe purchase. It’s a really fun read.