Sammy's House

by Kristin Gore Narrated by Kirsten Potter

Overview

In this incisive comedy, late twenty-something Sammy Joyce-hypochondriac, klutz, jumper-to-conclusions-is in the White House as a health-care advisor to the newly elected administration. All the chips seem to be falling into place: She's living with her best friend and reveling in her romance with Charlie Lawton, an up-and-coming Washington Post reporter.

However, soon after taking office, the administration finds itself deep in a red-hot scandal. President Wye's old problem with the bottle re-emerges. His family is creating havoc. And an informant begins leaking damaging information. On top of it all, a secret deal with an Indian pharmaceutical company unleashes a fury that threatens the administration to its core. As Sammy fights to distance herself from professional turmoil, Charlie gets promoted and moves to New York. Can she hold her ground when her relationships, ideals, and ability to trust are all coming apart at the seams?

In SAMMY'S HOUSE, Kristin Gore brings a novelist's eye to the inner workings of the White House, giving hilarious insight and a fresh perspective on political life.

Editorial Reviews

USA Today

Kristin Gore's novel is both fun and political . . . refreshing and charming . . . [Sammy's] Hill and [Sammy's] House both describe a Washington reality rarely captured in political thrillers and conspiracy tomes.

Entertainment Weekly

The former veep's second daughter knows how to turn Washington shenanigans into a lighthearted, fun read.

Booklist

Gore's second novel delves more deeply into the political realm Sammy inhabits. But herheroine remains compelling and thoroughly lovable, and readers will be thrilled to find Sammy back in the saddle again as she navigates the treacheries of Washington politics and her own love life.

BookPage

A hilarious and suspenseful six-month romp through the nation's capital.

Kirkus Reviews

In this jokey, sometimes juicy romance-and-politics comedy, the eponymous heroine, who was a senatorial aide in Gore's first novel (Sammy's Hill, 2004), finds herself working in a scandal-ridden White House, territory Al's daughter obviously knows well. Nerdy but pretty Sammy comes to the White House when her boss, the admirable Senator Gary, is elected vice president. She works on health-care issues for the demanding but good-humored (and yes, fatherly) Gary, while indulging in her own mild hypochondria and waiting for her reporter boyfriend Charlie to propose. In the face of petty pranks and small exposes perpetrated against the White House by opposition members who call themselves the Exterminators, Sammy remains unperturbed, proud to be an idealistic believer in the new administration. She is therefore deeply shaken when she discovers that President Wye, a self-proclaimed reformed drinker, spikes his diet sodas with whiskey. Then, on a trip to India to work out a trade deal for low-cost pharmaceuticals, Sammy and V.P. Gary find themselves acquiescing to Wye's request to arrange undercover shipments of a still-experimental drug to treat Wye's Alzheimer's-ridden father. Soon after the elder Wye dies, leaving behind an illegitimate presidential half-brother fathered in an assisted-living facility, Sammy witnesses the president being dosed with the experimental Indian drug to counteract his alcoholism. It isn't long before the Exterminators get wind of the real scandal brewing. While the White House operatives scurry to find leakers, Wye denies the drinking. Not only is Sammy distraught at the state of the free world, but her work is taking its toll on her love life. To the author'scredit, no one-not even Sammy, Charlie or the basically ethical and ultimately heroic Vice President Gary-is without guilt, although love and honor conquer all. Despite a few wicked sparks (the reality show starring the ex-president is priceless), Gore's satire is more affectionate than biting. Agent: Andrew Wylie/Wylie Agency

DEC 07/JAN 08 - AudioFile

This sequel to SAMMY'S HILL (currently in movie development) isn't quite as madcap as the original but still provides laugh-out-loud predicaments for its heroine. Samantha (Sammy) Joyce's boss is now vice president of the nation, and her job as his health care advisor puts new demands on her slightly goofy personality. Kirsten Potter voices Sammy with an ideal blend of cool professionalism and wacky neuroticism. As portrayed by Potter, Sammy's zany inner monologues are sharply funny, especially when she’s struggling with a potential White House scandal and the uncertainties of a long-distance relationship. As the daughter of a certain well-known Gore, the author may be providing insight into the workings of the White House. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169059960
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/03/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

SAMMY'S HOUSE

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By Kristin Gore

Hyperion

Copyright © 2007 Kristin Gore
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4013-0264-1

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Chapter One

Splash

It was when she started stripping that everyone realized something was wrong. This was an official White House event. A somewhat boring, completely respectable cruise on the Potomac River to thank everyone in the West Wing for the hard work that had won the election. But it was no longer boring. Until the woman whipped off her tailored black jacket to reveal a star-spangled bra and a surprisingly elaborate dragon tattoo, the only remarkable thing about this cruise was that it was nineteen months late. The celebratory boat ride had been promised long ago, in the first month of our new administration, but no one minded that the business of running the country had continuously delayed its actual launch. Victory was prize enough-who needed a cruise?

I tore my eyes away from the increasingly explicit show to scan the crowd for RG. He'd gone below deck to take a call from President Wye, and I was relieved that he still seemed to be there, unaware of these antics. He was the vice president, and as a member of the White House staff, one of my duties was to protect him from public embarrassment whenever possible. That job had become significantly harder in the last thirty seconds.

I looked quicklyaround for help, but most people seemed frozen, capable only of staring with wide-open mouths. The stereo system played on, its background hum now transformed into a striptease soundtrack. Someone needed to shut it off. Someone needed to shut her off. I searched for the Secret Service agents posted throughout the boat. Would they get involved only if they deemed the stripper a security threat? By now, she'd reached a point where concealed weapons seemed an impossibility.

Upon closer examination, the dragon tatooed on her shoulder appeared to be wearing a tufted pink tutu. I pondered its significance. Perhaps this unknown woman, who until a minute ago everyone had taken for an inhibited waitress offering shrimp dip and taquitos, belonged to a hard-livin', rough-and-tumble gang of rebel ballerinas. She was certainly nimble, judging by the ease with which she was now pirouetting out of her panties.

I was blinking from the flashes, both photographic and pornographic, and had just noticed the tattoo of a tap-dancing minotaur on the stripper's upper thigh when Harry Danson, the president's chief of staff, suddenly pushed through the crowd and covered her with his jacket. She tried to shrug it off, but Harry was very firm. It's in his job description.

"Just what is this all about?" he demanded fiercely, painfully aware of all the photos that had already been taken.

There wasn't any press aboard; the cruise was for staff only. But though everyone was ostensibly loyally intent on protecting the administration from unnecessary scandal, it was hard to keep a story like this from getting out. I myself could think of five people I planned to regale immediately with this sordid tale. It wasn't often that one attended an office function and got entertained by a scantily clad exhibitionist inked with dancing fantasy creatures. It would be selfish to keep this to myself.

"I'm a gift from the Exterminators," the stripper answered. "They say congratulations for making it this far.

They didn't think you had it in you."

I watched Harry's jawline stiffen. When he got angry, which was distressingly often, he looked like he'd had steel cheek implants. I'd met few people more ripe for a hernia.

"Thank you, that will be all," he ground out through clenched teeth.

Harry and a couple Secret Service agents ushered the woman through the still-stunned crowd toward the caterers' station. The hushed silence that had accompanied her performance exploded into the sounds of a hundred and seventy-five people talking at once.

The Exterminators were a very disgruntled band of former officials from the previous administration. Most of them had stayed in D.C. to form an opposition think tank, and nothing seemed to please them more than perpetrating juvenile pranks while they worked very seriously to sabotage every policy change we tried to make.

They hadn't named their think tank the Exterminators. That particular moniker derived from one of the many vindictive stunts they'd pulled on their way out of the West Wing, which they had vandalized to the best of their abilities in a rage against their ouster. In addition to rigging booby traps and carving their initials into various pieces of furniture, they had also taken the time to enact a much more elaborate and dastardly scheme.

They'd ordered cases of frozen feeder mice-available on the Internet to pet owners in need of food for raptors and reptiles-and, in an impressive labor of hate, had carefully sewn several hundred of these tiny frozen mice into the hems of all the heavy West Wing drapes.

We'd noticed an unpleasant odor a few days after we'd moved in, but couldn't be positive that wasn't the way the place always smelled. But as the frozen feeder mice had thawed in their thick fabric tombs, the smell had intensified rapidly. In a little over a week, it had become unbearably wretched, rendering the West Wing virtually uninhabitable.

It had been difficult to locate the precise source, since the horrific stench had seemed to emanate from the very walls around us. The maintenance crew had finally discovered the tiny rotting rodent corpses after their fourth thorough search. That very day, a case of champagne had been delivered to the West Wing with a note that read: "To wash down the smell. Enjoy yourselves while you last, because we'll be rid of you before you know it. Love and kisses, the Exterminators." And thus, an annoying nickname had been born.

Even after the discovery and removal of the mice carcasses, the gut-gripping stink had lingered for nearly two months, despite all efforts to eradicate it. To their obnoxious delight, the Exterminators had inflicted a parting gift that had kept on giving.

I knew that my own party was perfectly capable of similar pettiness, because the previous administration had complained instantly to the press when they'd moved into the White House eight years earlier to find tuna sandwiches locked in all their file cabinets and their computers rigged to print the chorus of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" no matter what the command. Some in the press had privately enjoyed the specter of then President Pile's political guru Carl Jones battling rebellious office machinery that taunted him with the words "Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones?" printed over and over again, but the majority of columns and articles had chastised the outgoing administration for such childishness.

Had we been as eager to whine to the press, we might have garnered comparable support, but we weren't the same breed of tattletales. And even taking pride in that was immature. The whole embarrassing rivalry gave me flashbacks to junior high.

Which, frankly, didn't seem all that long ago. I was twenty-eight now and working as a health care advisor to the White House, but I still often felt as awkward and unsure of myself as I had during those halcyon days of orthodontic headgear and New Kids on the Block fan clubs. Though I'd spent a few fascinating years as a Capitol Hill staffer to then Senator Robert Gary (RG to his staff), the White House was an entirely different universe. The stakes, the pressure, the perpetual potential for both extraordinary progress and crippling failure-everything was ratcheted up to a spectacular intensity now that I worked for the president and vice president of the United States. More than ever before, I felt like I needed to constantly prove myself in a new world full of gossip and cliques and all sorts of social politics. So in some ways, the junior high flashbacks were apropos. Though perhaps I had slightly more of a shot at a date with New Kid heartthrob Jordan Knight now. Slightly.

Amid the fear and anxiety, I also felt a certain wide-eyed wonder at everything I was witnessing. At the inauguration of Wye and RG, I'd been awed by the sight of democracy in action. After a hard-fought, nasty election cycle, it had been thrilling and refreshing to observe the peaceful transfer of power. I'd watched everything from the sidelines, humbled by the remarkable nature of such an event, and grateful to be on the happier end of it. Granted, a week later I'd felt considerably less idealistic about the whole thing when I'd had to wear a surgical mask at my desk to filter the rancid fumes of decomposing mice. And now those same clever saboteurs had disrupted our year-and-a-half-late victory cruise by paying a woman to take her clothes off. They were classy, classy folks.

"Everyone resume having fun," Harry Danson barked threateningly at the crowd.

We instantly pretended to obey. I watched several people punching buttons on their cell phones and could practically feel the camera-phone photos whisking away to the world beyond White House control.

I noticed Lincoln Thomas standing by the starboard railing, as far from the heart of the crowd as he could get. As usual, he looked like a frightened stork-ready at the next instant to gather his thin legs and ruffled feathers and take off for calmer waters. Lincoln was my direct superior-the chief domestic policy advisor to the president-and I worked with him all day, every day. I was continually amazed by his excruciating shyness and considered it part of my job to try to help him overcome it.

"What did you make of the show?" I asked, wondering if he might pretend not to hear me. It was an old trick of his.

His eyes flitted to my face briefly, and then away again as he cleared his throat in his nervous way. Every conversation was a cage for him. He'd beat against it for a panicked moment, hoping against hope for escape, before realizing he was trapped.

"Well, it was, er ... exhilarating," he finally managed. "Not 'exhilarating' in the good, I-was-enjoying-it way," he rushed to mumble. "I just mean it was very, um ..."

His face had turned red and taken on a desperate sheen.

"Unexpected," I offered.

He breathed in gratefully.

"Exactly. Unexpected," he agreed. "That's more what I meant. Not sexy or titillating or ..." He trailed off, looking alarmed again.

"So, I think we're all set for the bill signing tomorrow," I threw out.

"Yes. Good," Lincoln answered thankfully.

He was completely in his element when discussing work. It was everything else that he couldn't handle.

"I'll see you then, there. I mean there, then. Bye," he blurted, before moving quickly away. I watched him walk off to inflict his social awkwardness on someone else, then busied myself with some passing guacamole as I studied the remaining waitstaff. I was no longer fooled by their crisp jackets, which I now knew could be quickly shed like so much feigned politeness.

Where had the stripper gone, anyway? Had she already been removed from the boat, with the help of the D.C. police? After a quick search, I spotted her sitting in a chair, being interrogated by an agent. And what about RG? I was glad Wye wasn't on board. The Exterminators would have felt even more insufferably proud of themselves had they managed to punk the president along with the entire West Wing staff. I heard RG's familiar deep tones behind me and turned to find him in quiet conversation with Harry Danson, who was obviously briefing him on what he'd missed. Harry was considerably shorter than RG, with a bald, pointy head. He often reminded me of a very angry garden gnome. RG, in contrast, was a good-looking man whose distinguished demeanor conveyed a sense of calm intelligence, though these days his shoulders were too often tensed for conflict. Indeed, I noticed that his hair had grayed further over the past month, and the little lines around his eyes had burrowed deeper. When he'd joined the presidential ticket, he'd looked like a grown-up Boy Scout, but his face was considerably more worn-in now. Observing him, I was reminded of George Orwell's famous quote: "At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves." RG still had a few more years to sculpt his legacy, but his face was beginning to reflect the efforts.

I wondered if RG was bothered by the pace of his aging, whether it even crossed his mind. He blinked his tired eyes, said something I couldn't hear to Harry, and made his way to the center of the main deck. Someone clinked a spoon against a glass. Everyone quieted immediately, though I heard some scattered snickers, perhaps because RG was standing in the same spot where the stripper had begun her routine. It was almost impossible not to imagine what it would be like if he followed suit.

It was a ridiculous visual, and to my horror, I suddenly found myself having to stifle my own inadvertent laughter. Against my will, I was picturing RG helicoptering his jacket around in the air and swiveling his hips as he loosened that trusty red tie. Don't start laughing, I ordered myself sternly. Even as I commanded, I knew it was a lost cause. Trying not to laugh was the one sure way to send me into hysterics, however unwilling or inappropriate. I had yet to recover from a recent incident at my great-aunt's funeral triggered by the prim preacher's involuntary burp during the homily.

I winced at the memory even as I felt insubordinate giggles rising up once again and stuffed an olive in my mouth to keep it occupied. Looking serious, RG began speaking.

"For anyone visualizing me stripping, it ain't gonna happen," he deadpanned.

Everyone laughed, which was a welcome release for my pent-up hilarity.

"I understand there's been some excitement this evening and I'm sure our friends on the other side are very proud of their latest stunt, but our celebration tonight is about a whole lot more than silly games," RG continued. "We were elected, and we're now here in D.C. because of a simple, real truth. The American people want more out of their public servants, and we're going to give it to them. With the extraordinary hearts and minds gathered here today, we can do anything. We're going to help this great country be even better. So on behalf of the president and myself, and the bright future we are all shaping together, I want to thank you. And I want to salute you. For your passion, your commitment, and your fantastic, important work."

I felt a swell of pride and joined the heartfelt clapping, relishing the communal thrill that raced through the crowd. We had all worked incredibly hard to put RG and Wye, and by extension ourselves, into the White House. Though it was easy to forget the greater cause in the midst of the daily grind, luckily it only seemed to take a little well-placed rhetoric to energize us anew. Particularly when it involved flattery.

I suspected that we were so easily rejuvenated because at our cores, we believed we really could change the world. I knew that this didn't make us all that fashionable or cool. Cynicism was definitely much more in vogue. But this crowd had somehow opted out of ironic detachment. For better or for worse, we cared. And so, though it occurred to me that we all might be suckers, the reality was that a year and a half after commandeering the White House, most of us still felt the blood-tingling, breath-skipping happiness of what we'd pulled off. No amount of criticism, opposition, or sabotage could take that away. At least we hoped not.

"We've accomplished a lot so far, but it's only the beginning," RG continued. "We have an exciting few years ahead of us, so fill up on this shrimp dip. You're gonna need the energy."

I laughed along with the others and helped toast to our future, but RG's shrimp dip comment made me wonder about the possible hazards of the hors d'oeuvres we were consuming. Now that one of the waitresses had turned out to be a hired stripper, I was newly leery of the chefs. It's not like "cruise food" enjoys the most stellar reputation as it is. It seemed to me that I was perpetually coming across news stories about cruise ship passengers stricken by some mystery virus or another, and the sheer number of these incidents was worrisome. As far as I could tell, it was tough to go on a cruise and not come down with a hideous food-borne illness.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from SAMMY'S HOUSE by Kristin Gore Copyright © 2007 by Kristin Gore. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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