From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein

From the Corner of the Oval is Beck Dorey-Stein's debut novel. It tells the story of a former teacher who, through what seems like chance and more luck than she deserves, ends up as a stenographer in the White House during the Obama administration.  She writes with a combination of hubris, candidness, and embarrassment. Dorey-Stein has a voice that is one of a kind.

I don't normally love memoirs. People's lives are generally not as interesting as they think they are.  And Dorey-Stein's life was, for the most part, incredibly normal for a 20-something. She was aimless in her career, she was the "other woman" in a relationship with a man who wanted nothing from her except sex, and she was a borderline alcoholic. She made bad decision after bad decision in a way that was not only predictable, but predictable in a way that made me want to reassure all the confident, smart, self-assure, and composed 20-somethings who are doing all the right things, but aren't getting anywhere in life, that they're okay and Dorey-Stein was just insanely lucky.  All in all, I though the parts of this book about her personal life were a terrible snoozefest. 

But, on the other hand, it was fascinating to hear about life in the Oval Office from the POV from a low-level staffer.  It was fascinating to see just how much of the life of a POTUS is determined by 20-something staffers who are suffering from frequent hangovers. It was fascinating to get a look into the planning of an international presidential visit. It was fascinating to think about how much of her life was a hurry up and wait.  Her personal life was not interesting in the least, but her professional life certainly was.

And Dorey-Stein can write. Even though I didn't really care about her personal life and I wanted to smack her repeatedly for her immature handling of just about every social interaction she had, I really was interested. I flipped through the pages, always wanting more.  Mostly I wanted more about what clothes she wore, how much she got paid, and what she packed on her trips, but in the end this is an author who was in an interesting place at an interesting time and she can write well.  I wish there were an edited volume in which all mentions of sex, booze, and cigarettes were removed, but the book does stand on its own. 

Three and a half stars out of five with the hope that Dorey-Stein does something else interesting in her 30s and writes another memoir, but figures out that life isn't all about hormones and Cape Codder cocktails.