Losing Mum and Pup
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“I had more or less resolved not to write a book about my parents. But I’m a writer, and when the universe hands you material like this, not writing about it amounts either to waste or a conscious act of evasion.”So begins award-winning satirist Christopher Buckley in the most personal and transcendent work of his life, the tragicomic true story of the year in which both of his parents died. In twelve months between 2007 and 2008, Buckley coped with the passing of his father, William F. Buckley, the father of the modern conservative movement, and his mother, Patricia Taylor Buckley, one of New York’s most glamorous and colorful socialites. He was their only child and their relationship was close and complicated. Writes Buckley: “They were not — with respect to every other set of loving, wonderful parents in the world — your typical mom and dad.”As Buckley tells the story of their final year together, he takes readers on a surprisingly entertaining tour through hospitals, funeral homes, and memorial services, capturing the heartbreaking and disorienting feeling of becoming a fifty-five-year-old orphan. Buckley maintains his sense of humor by recalling the words of Oscar Wilde: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”Christopher Buckley offers consolation, wit, and warmth to those coping with the death of a parent, while telling a unique personal story of life with legends. The Barnes & Noble Review Christopher Buckley prizes being debonair and puckish the way Dolly Parton has long valued being a 40DD, and for pretty much the same reason. Having established up front that boredom isn't in the cards, he and she can both talk about whatever they like. His comic Washington novels often wear thin on me, especially when he lets a larky premise do all the work and treats the rest as mere typing. But his Beau Brummell jests about politics and other train wrecks are the main reason I regularly check out Tina Brown's Daily Beast website, his perch for current events commentary since last fall.
