Upstairs, Downstairs in the White House

Brower has collected stories from the staff who serve within the White House for this book, spanning 5 decades, 10 administrations, and from all ranks, from butlers, maids, chefs, florists, doormen – and also from former first ladies, and first children.

From the outset, Brower explains – and then repeats over and over and stresses endlessly – how discreet the staff are, how dedicatedly they protect the privacy of the first family: 

Discretion is built into the DNA of most of them […] without it, life in the executive mansion would be impossible to endure.

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and from maids to butlers,

they see but they don’t see, they hear but they don’t hear.

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One cannot help therefore wondering as one reads, to what extent Brower is able to bring us a representative portrait if everyone she speaks to is intent on only representing the positive facets and concealing much. After all, Brower says the staffers

share a fierce loyalty of the institution of the American presidency.

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Brower’s book spins a meta-narrative of how proud the staffers are to work within this building and institution.  

For those readers who are interested in the logistics of running a White House, it may be fascinating to read details of how the flowers are done, where the bills go, how many staffers there are (96 full time, 250 part-time), the annual budget of operational costs ($13 million), etc. There are of course many little anecdotes of private little moments which show the residents’ humanity or connection with their staff, intended to be touching or heart warming. We learn about President Johnson’s bullying manner, Nancy Reagan being hard to please, Hillary Clinton’s love for chef Mesnier’s mocha cake which she asked for repeatedly after news of the Lewinsky affair broke. There are stories about the demands on staff when faced with big occasions or moments of national and familial crisis. There are little tidbits about various first families’ lives backstage. Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book are about the transition between first families as administrations change, and differences between styles of living and particularly first ladies’ approaches.  

There was a good inclusion of a chapter on race, but although it highlighted the legacy of African Americans (many of whom were slave descendents) serving white Americans, it didn’t actually unpack the race and power implications. There was an interesting incident recounted which happened during the 1987 Gorbachev visit White House, when a sudden downpour meant butlers had to come out with umbrellas to shelter the dignities; the white butlers were asked to hold the umbrellas, knowing the media would televise this worldwide, so that the White House wouldn’t look to the world like the “last plantation” – wonderful hypocrisy.

Not only are the White House in large part staffed by African Americans, those African Americans staff are not even going to be visible on the public stage. There is in fact some kind of unspoken tension throughout the book – the tension of representing the staff as wanting to serve discreetly, without drawing attention to themselves, just doing their jobs which is to make the first families happy and comfortable, while also wanting to be acknowledged as more than servants, as more than staff, as human beings. There is also an unspoken tension around representing how the first families are just ordinary human beings who are not superior to any other human beings, and yet also regarding them as exalted in some ways, even if temporarily, for the time they are resident as first families. Rather a case of Brower wanting to have her cake and eat it too. Wanting to claim such a perfect service set with loyal retainers, and yet wanting to stress the humanity and connection of and with the first family; wanting to represent glamour and yet claim they are just ordinary folk.  

This of course has a touch of Downton Abbey about it, as Brower herself says, but apart from being mildly interesting, this is not a particularly riveting book. If court intrigue is your cup of tea, there are many other kingdoms and civilisations which have far more fascinating operational features of their palaces, monarchies, and daily living.

It is a well written, well researched book, treading with greatest political care, but more the kind of book one may mention to one’s friends as a topic of general interest rather than particularly riveting a read. It has very little critical or analytical content, and that is probably not its brief, and probably not what its intended audience would either expect or want. If you just want a few highly selected and censored tidbits about the White House backstage, this is perfectly satisfactory. It is happy-clappy, heart-warming, and for most part uncritical account of how the White House runs.