This is the book for book club this month, and I almost wasn't going to read it (I have only gone to book club maybe twice, because of being on trips and not having read the book), but I did think it sounded interesting. And our library had an e-copy that I could instantly download and start reading. I really enjoyed it. This book is exactly what it sounds like: West was an usher and the Chief Usher at the White House for twenty-eight years, from the Roosevelts through the Nixons, and he spent a lot of time interacting with the First Ladies of those presidencies. The usher basically runs all of the complicated details of the White House, from event planning to decorating to answering any of the First Family's demands. He therefore spends a lot of time writing about each First Lady and their personalities, and hardly any time at all about the Presidents (who were less involved with the day-to-day running of the White House). I loved how West was very complimentary about each First Lady--I'm sure that there must have been many annoying things about working for each one of them, but from the way he wrote, they were all amazing, generous, opinionated but nice human beings. I bet a lot of people wanted to read this book and get some dirt about some of these First Ladies, but he definitely did not give it to anyone. He spent a lot of time trying to give each one the benefit of the doubt; when writing about the Kennedys, he talked about how they possibly could have been closer, but they had only been married for ten years and they were trying really hard to spend time together and be on the same page (which maybe hints at the fact that they weren't that close?). I think Bess Truman sounded like the nicest, and Mamie Eisenhower. (Two women I have literally never thought about.) I liked how the Trumans were such a close-knit family--he said that they spent all their time together and Bess was Truman's top advisor. He spent a lot of time talking about how the ladies redecorated the house, the types of entertaining they did, the huge renovation of the White House to make it safer during the Truman administration, and what each lady's priorities were as the First Lady. I thought that was so fascinating to learn about, and to just see what it's like working right up close and seeing these families in a closer light.
The only thing I didn't like about this book was that there wasn't really an overarching point to it. Each section just goes through each administration, and then moves on to the next. I feel like there could have been more of a theme running throughout, or more discussion of each transition (sometimes I felt left hanging). But overall, this was a very enjoyable book and I am glad to have read it (even if I had to read it on my phone, which is NOT enjoyable to me. The Kindle is way better, but it doesn't seem to work for this specific library app that this book fell under). And after reading this, it made me wonder about the more recent first ladies--what was it like for the rest of them? I'd love to know how it has changed in the recent era with First Ladies that are more involved and do more than just running the house (although some of his First Ladies did that too). I guess we need to get the more recent Chief Ushers to write memoirs too.
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