The Obamas: A Mission, A Marriage - review

The difficulty for a behind-the-scenes biographer of the Obamas is that the couple are socially wary and the President is as mysterious as the Mona Lisa. Worse, he is a stunning writer. The most profound insights into the marriage and his state of mind come from the subject.

If he does turn out to be a one-term President, it will be an enormous boost to the literary world. In the meantime, Jodi Kantor's book, The Obamas, A Mission, A Marriage, is a stylish examination of the complexities and tensions within the presidential marriage.

It is intrinsic to the American Dream that it cannot prepare you for presidential life. Michelle Obama may have believed passionately that "you shouldn't have a better chance if you're a Kennedy than if you're Obama" but the Kennedys, nevertheless, felt at home in the White House.

Obama gets lost on his first evening there, and the First Lady feels imprisoned and exasperated by the legacy of the former tenants, with their stuffy interior decoration and the unpleasant lingering scent of their pets.

The Obamas are not short of self-belief but they register that the presidential home was formerly known as the Executive Mansion and changed its name at the start of the last century, to placate white opinion. The Obamas have to be both symbolic and human, above politics and yet master politicians.

It is a marriage of equals but the power of his office reduces visitors such as Brad Pitt to awed silence. Kantor flatteringly traces the arc of the marriage - his optimism swooping to doubt and finally determination, her suspicion growing into confidence and clarity. The author's best source material is an interview with the couple.

Barack Obama says, smiling: "My staff worry a lot more about what the First Lady thinks than they worry about what I think."

Uh-oh. The scene is set for a showdown. The strongest news revelation from the book is a row between the presidential aide Robert Gibbs and the First Lady. He goes to some trouble to kill a story that she has confided to Carla Bruni Sarkozy that she finds life in the White House "hell".

Michelle's representative, Valerie Jarrett, chides him for not doing it quickly enough. He yells at Jarrett and adds of the First Lady "then fuck her too". Gibbs has now "moved on". It is a good Ides of March-style anecdote but hardly counts as evidence against the Obamas. It turns out Michelle Obama had never complained about Gibbs.

Yet it has traction, because it fleshes out a character trait in Michelle.

She is so steeped in civil rights that she cannot cut her husband some slack. During an intense phase of campaigning she asks him to bring home eggs and milk. She is reluctant for him to stand as presidential candidate, drags her feet over relocating the family to Washington when he wins, and is known among presidential aides as The Taskmaster.

Michelle Obama does not, according to this book, suffer from Hillary-style frustrated political ambition. It is more a family-centred ambition. She is a tiger mother who is busy fighting the "Kenyan" narrative of Barack's rootless, fragmented childhood.

She is also warm, direct and far more transparent than her husband, which makes him so much more interesting. The author does not quite crack the President's introspection and his self-reliance, neither does his wife.

The Obamas claim they will happily give up the baubles of the presidency, yet the author notes his competitiveness has returned now the office is at stake. Barack Obama jokes that when he leaves he would like to hang on to the valet and the private plane. Even if you are not born to the presidency you can acquire a taste for it.