The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House - Kate Andersen Brower
The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House - Kate Andersen Brower
Non-Fiction
Pages: 320
Much like Buckingham Palace, the White House seems to be run by staff who are all but invisible. During any public event, when television cameras and photographers abound, domestic are never to be seen. And yet neither grand house could exist without them, and no public event would be a successful without an enormous number of people hard at work in the background, unacknowledged and unheralded. This book explores the lives of those busy White House workers, many of whom have seen four, five, even six administrations come and go.
From the Carpenters Shop to the Florists, from the chef to the Secret Service, maids, doormen, butlers, their day-to-day lives and their intimate encounters with members of the First Family, it is all recounted here. It is unusual to get this kind of glimpse at such public figures - Nancy Reagan comes across as quite the demanding termagant, Lyndon Johnson as an unreasonable and coarse figure, George H.W. Bush as a man with a kind heart and real time for and interest in the staff. Brower also charts the impact on the staff of events such as the Kennedy assassination and September 11th and how they reacted and rallied around the presidents and their families at such times.
It's a fascinating exploration of the behind-the-scenes life at the White House, inspired, as the author admits, by Downton Abbey and the relationships between those 'upstairs' and 'downstairs'. And indeed it's hard not to avoid the comparisons between the White House and the great stately homes or royal palaces of Britain, all the way down to the devotion and loyalty these staff feel for the institution of the White House as much as the individuals occupying it. The comparisons between a modern monarchy and the presidency have been dwelt on before, at great length, but reading this book I felt them once again. The way the staffers sacrifice home lives, personal lives, social lives, family, marriages - it seems tremendously one-way, and one can't help but wonder whether the current occupants of the White House don't take their devotion for granted, as no doubt the aristocracy and royalty do.
Non-Fiction
Pages: 320
Much like Buckingham Palace, the White House seems to be run by staff who are all but invisible. During any public event, when television cameras and photographers abound, domestic are never to be seen. And yet neither grand house could exist without them, and no public event would be a successful without an enormous number of people hard at work in the background, unacknowledged and unheralded. This book explores the lives of those busy White House workers, many of whom have seen four, five, even six administrations come and go.
From the Carpenters Shop to the Florists, from the chef to the Secret Service, maids, doormen, butlers, their day-to-day lives and their intimate encounters with members of the First Family, it is all recounted here. It is unusual to get this kind of glimpse at such public figures - Nancy Reagan comes across as quite the demanding termagant, Lyndon Johnson as an unreasonable and coarse figure, George H.W. Bush as a man with a kind heart and real time for and interest in the staff. Brower also charts the impact on the staff of events such as the Kennedy assassination and September 11th and how they reacted and rallied around the presidents and their families at such times.
It's a fascinating exploration of the behind-the-scenes life at the White House, inspired, as the author admits, by Downton Abbey and the relationships between those 'upstairs' and 'downstairs'. And indeed it's hard not to avoid the comparisons between the White House and the great stately homes or royal palaces of Britain, all the way down to the devotion and loyalty these staff feel for the institution of the White House as much as the individuals occupying it. The comparisons between a modern monarchy and the presidency have been dwelt on before, at great length, but reading this book I felt them once again. The way the staffers sacrifice home lives, personal lives, social lives, family, marriages - it seems tremendously one-way, and one can't help but wonder whether the current occupants of the White House don't take their devotion for granted, as no doubt the aristocracy and royalty do.