From the Corner of the Oval

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • What if you lived out the drama of your twenties on Air Force One? “[This] breezy page turner is essentially Bridget Jones goes to the White House.”-- The New York Times RECOMMENDED READING theSkimm • Today • Entertainment Weekly • Refinery29 • Bustle • PopSugar • Vanity Fair • The New York Times Editors’ Choice • Paste In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein is working five part-time jobs and just scraping by when a posting on Craigslist lands her, improbably, in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama’s stenographers. The ultimate D.C. outsider, she joins the elite team who accompany the president wherever he goes, recorder and mic in hand. On whirlwind trips across time zones, Beck forges friendships with a dynamic group of fellow travelers--young men and women who, like her, leave their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the president. As she learns to navigate White House protocols and more than once runs afoul of the hierarchy, Beck becomes romantically entangled with a consummate D.C. insider, and suddenly the political becomes all too personal. Against a backdrop of glamour, drama, and intrigue, this is the story of a young woman learning what truly matters, and, in the process, discovering her voice. Praise for From the Corner of the Oval “Who knew the West Wing could be so sexy? Beck Dorey-Stein’s unparalleled access is obvious on every page, along with her knife-sharp humor. I tore through the entire book on a four-hour flight and loved reading all about the brilliant yet hard-partying people who once surrounded the leader of the free world. Lots of books claim to give real insider glimpses, but this one actually delivers.” --Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada “Dorey-Stein . . . writes with wit and self-deprecating humor.” -- The Wall Street Journal “Addictively readable . . . Dorey-Stein’s spunk and her sparkling, crackling prose had me cheering for her through each adventure. . . . She never loses her starry-eyed optimism, her pinch-me wonderment, her Working Girl pluck.” --Paul Begala, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ...

Autorentext

Beck Dorey-Stein

Klappentext

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • What if you lived out the drama of your twenties on Air Force One?
 
“[This] breezy page turner is essentially Bridget Jones goes to the White House.”—The New York Times
 
RECOMMENDED READING theSkimm • Today • Entertainment Weekly • Refinery29 • Bustle • PopSugar • Vanity Fair •  The New York Times Editors’ Choice • Paste

In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein is working five part-time jobs and just scraping by when a posting on Craigslist lands her, improbably, in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama’s stenographers. The ultimate D.C. outsider, she joins the elite team who accompany the president wherever he goes, recorder and mic in hand. On whirlwind trips across time zones, Beck forges friendships with a dynamic group of fellow travelers—young men and women who, like her, leave their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the president.
 
As she learns to navigate White House protocols and more than once runs afoul of the hierarchy, Beck becomes romantically entangled with a consummate D.C. insider, and suddenly the political becomes all too personal.

Against a backdrop of glamour, drama, and intrigue, this is the story of a young woman learning what truly matters, and, in the process, discovering her voice.
**
Praise for** From the Corner of the Oval

“Who knew the West Wing could be so sexy? Beck Dorey-Stein’s unparalleled access is obvious on every page, along with her knife-sharp humor. I tore through the entire book on a four-hour flight and loved reading all about the brilliant yet hard-partying people who once surrounded the leader of the free world. Lots of books claim to give real insider glimpses, but this one actually delivers.”—Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada

“Dorey-Stein . . . writes with wit and self-deprecating humor.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Addictively readable . . . Dorey-Stein’s spunk and her sparkling, crackling prose had me cheering for her through each adventure. . . . She never loses her starry-eyed optimism, her pinch-me wonderment, her *Working Girl *pluck.”—Paul Begala, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Connecting the Dots

2011 January 2012

so what do you do? is the first question d.c. people ask, and the last question you want to answer if you re unemployed, which I am. It s October 2011, and since the summer, I ve spent nine to five at my kitchen table writing cover letters no one will ever read. I keep setting the bar lower and lower, and I m no longer hoping for actual interviews, but just generic acknowledgments that my applications have been received so I know that I haven t actually disappeared from the universe even if my savings and confidence have. I ve grown to appreciate employers considerate enough to reject me properly with a courtesy email. The halfhearted Google spreadsheet I keep on my desktop shows zero job prospects but tons of student loans, and rent due in four days. And now it s time to go blow more money I don t have at a bar full of douchebags.

Dante failed to mention the tenth circle of hell, which is for people pretending to be happy at a happy hour full of young politicos at a lousy bar with sticky floors two blocks from the White House. These are soulless TGI Fridays type places, except that the cocktails are $17, and every time I walk into one, the soundtrack from Jaws plays in the back of my head.

I know the question is coming; it s lurking just below the surface like a patient predator: What do you do? What do you do? What do you do?

Happy hours in D.C. are thinly veiled opportunities to network, hook up, or both. I m not trying to do either, but here I am at Gold Fin because I promised my boyfriend I d talk to his coworker s girlfriend about doing research at her think tank. However, now that I m here, talking to Think-Tank Tracy seems like a waste of everyone s time. I m not a good fit for a think tank, or a PR firm, or a nonprofit; I haven t even received a generic rejection in weeks. I m slowly figuring out that I m not a good fit for this city in general, where everyone acts as if they know something you don t and dresses as if they re going to a mob boss s funeral in 1985. Black on black on black. And not cool New York black. Boring, uninspired, ill-fitting Men s Wearhouse meets Ann Taylor Loft black.

So instead of looking for Think-Tank Tracy, I look for the bartender. I try to get drunk right away so I can stop worrying about my bank account and how I m going to answer the inevitable What do you do? question. As the edges of the room begin to blur, the floor feels less sticky, and life seems beautiful and ironic and funny.

As I wait at the bar for another drink, I watch the pantomime of ladder-climbing bobbleheads who eagerly anticipate the moment they can offer up their freshly minted business cards. These twentysomething Thursday night kickballers and Saturday night kegstanders are as interesting as the bleached walls of this bar, and yet they re so arrogant, I must be the one missing something. After all, they are real people with real jobs earning real paychecks. They are young professionals who don t go grocery shopping in sweat pants in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Staring into the bottom of my drink…