Sean Spicer took about as much time writing a memoir of his tenure in the Trump administration as he did serving in it. The 46-year-old career Republican operative was President Trump’s press secretary beginning January 20, 2017—though some might say he didn’t really begin service until January 21, when he came out and claimed, despite copious photographic evidence to the contrary, that the inauguration crowd the day before had been the largest in American history. By September he was gone. Now, 10 months later, he’s released a thin memoir: The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President.
It was to hawk this book that Spicer returned on Saturday, July 28, to his hometown of Barrington, Rhode Island. Barrington is a tony suburb of Providence, home to a sparkling country club, an attractive municipal beach, and a downtown that tends towards farm-to-table restaurants and independent bookstores. Spicer had a typical Barrington upbringing: His father, who died in 2016, owned a yacht brokerage company. (Sean says it was the 1991 luxury tax applied to yachts that first raised his political consciousness.) The younger Spicer attended Portsmouth Abbey, a Catholic boarding school, and then Connecticut College. He’s been active in Republican politics ever since, while finding time along the way to serve in the Naval Reserve.
Spicer’s event, held at downtown fixture Barrington Books, was advertised for 1:30, but by 2:00 the doors hadn’t yet opened. So a long line formed in front of the store, which is situated in a downtown strip mall. There was a smattering of MAGA hats among the assembled, and a few younger folks sported red caps that read “Rhode Island First.” But the crowd was more curious than partisan. “I don’t really care about politics, but it’s cool when someone from your town writes a book,” one middle-aged woman said.
What Barrington Books’ logistical hiccup did afford was a greater opportunity for hecklers. “Fascists!” one shouted at the crowd. Others simply held signs in front of the line: “Sean Spicer Lied for Profit” and “Shame on Sean.” The protesters were moved along by local cops—“This is a private parking lot,” they said. The more clever protesters parked their cars in front of the line of ticket-holders and put big signs in their windshields. They then simply walked away.
Hecklers made it into the event as well. One man shouted, “Sean, any advice for the young people who want to make a profit from corroding the truth?” to a smattering of applause. It was presumably to avoid scenes like this that, the day before this event, BJ’s Wholesale Club in nearby Seekonk, Massachusetts, canceled its planned Spicer signing. This is, after all, a heavily Democratic area, and Spicer’s local roots buy him only so much slack. Here in Barrington, Spicer simply shrugged off the jab: “I think that young people should engage in government and be active,” he said.
The event was mostly a mellow one. Spicer was interviewed by Joe Paolino, the former mayor of Providence and a dogged Democrat—he’s DNC committeeman for Rhode Island. Paolino, tight with the Clintons, also served as Bill’s ambassador to Malta.
The former mayor allowed that “many of my friends who are Democrats are asking, ‘What the hell are you doing with Sean Spicer?’ ” But Paolino said that he views his role as telling Democrats that “we have to talk to Republicans if we want to keep our country moving forward.” This was a theme that came up time and again, with both Spicer and Paolino lamenting political polarization. “I’m a fairly fierce partisan, but I think we can have dialogue. We can learn from each other,” Spicer said. “We need to have discussions in a civil and respectful way.” The irony of this plea being made by a former Trump press secretary went unmentioned.
Like the book itself, the event was mostly a not-terribly-interesting biographical sketch of a genial fellow who, through a bizarre confluence of events, ended up as the public face of the Trump administration during its chaotic opening months.
Spicer dreamed of working in marketing before getting bitten by the “political bug,” he said. He recalled his first job in Washington, in the office of the legendary Rhode Island Republican senator John Chafee (“pure class”), and the various campaigns he served on. (“You were winning or losing. Running a campaign, you knew whether you were running forwards or backwards.”) And his time at the Republican National Committee from 2009 on. (“We spent a lot of time building a ground game and an operation. It’s all in the book.”) Strangely, the book is light on details about what it’s like to work with Trump. Spicer falls back on hoary clichés about what an “honor and privilege” it is to work in the White House.
In contrast to some other entries in the burgeoning genre of Trump Lit, The Briefing has not, apparently, been a major commercial hit. Unlike recent works by Michael Wolff, James Comey, and Jeanine Pirro, Spicer’s hasn’t rocketed up the New York Times bestseller list (it’s No. 13), and on the Amazon charts he’s been languishing in the high triple digits. That’s because Trump books are, commercially at least, the opposite of Aristotle’s Golden Mean: To succeed they need either to be slavishly pro-Trump or hysterically opposed. Spicer’s book sits there flaccidly in the middle.
Perhaps that’s why, even in a cozy hometown venue like Barrington, there are a smattering of empty seats. Though it’s always possible that the day after the event, Spicer reappeared to declare that his crowd was Barrington’s largest book signing in history.
