In White House Usher: Stories from the Inside, Christopher B. Emery also gives an indication of why he was abruptly fired by Clinton: She didn’t like his continued friendship with former first ladies such as Barbara Bush and felt he was gossiping about Clinton family “secrets.”

Actually, all he was doing in those calls was helping Bush with her laptop computer, an IBM Thinkpad he had built for her. “For Mrs. Clinton to suggest I was telling Barbara Bush personal stories about the Clintons is extreme paranoia. First, I would never ever do such a thing, and second, anyone who knows Barbara Bush knows she would never tolerate or listen to such nonsense,” he wrote.

While his just-released book is not a salacious tell-all, it does include interesting facts not known before, such as Bill Clinton’s allergies to Christmas trees, how George H.W. Bush called himself “Mr. Smooth,” and that there is a large collection of Elvis Presley CDs stored in the East Wing.