Christopher Buckley
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Christopher Taylor Buckley (born 1952) is an American political satirist and author of several novels. He is the son of William F. Buckley, Jr.. His novels include God Is My Broker, Thank You For Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat A First Lady, Wet Work and Florence of Arabia (2004).
Buckley, like his father, graduated from Yale University. He became managing editor of Esquire Magazine and later worked as the chief speech writer for Vice President George H. W. Bush. This experience led to his novel The White House Mess, a satire on White House office politics. (The title refers to the White House lunchroom, which is known as the "mess" because the Navy operates it.)
Thank You for Smoking is another satire, its protagonist a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, Nick Naylor. He followed that with more humor about Washington in the form of Little Green Men, about the government agency investigating UFO sightings--it turns out it really is a government conspiracy led by a Strom Thurmond-like U.S. Senator. His No Way To Treat A First Lady has the president's wife on trial for assassinating her husband and Florence of Arabia is about a do-gooding State Department bureaucrat in the Middle East. His one serious novel, Wet Work, is about a father avenging his daughter's death from drugs.
Buckley also wrote the non-fiction Steaming To Bamboola, about sailing, and is an editor at Forbes Magazine.
External Links
- 1986 audio interview of Christopher Buckley, RealAudio (http://wiredforbooks.org/christopherbuckley/)