No Way to Treat a First Lady

by Christopher Buckley

Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, the First Lady of the United States, has been charged with killing her philandering husband, the President of the United States. In the midst of a bedroom spat, she allegedly hurled a historic Paul Revere spittoon at him, with tragic results. The attorney general has no choice but to put the First Lady on trial for assassination.

The media has never warmed to Beth MacMann (her nickname in the tabloids is Lady Bethmac), and as America girds for a scandalous, sensational trial, Beth reaches out to the only defense attorney she trusts, Boyce Shameless Baylor, who charges $1,000 an hour and has represented a Who's Who of scoundrels: murderous running backs, society wife-killers, Los Alamos spies, and national-security sellouts.

Why Boyce Baylor? Because Beth loved him once, when they were law students. Boyce wanted to marry her, but Beth chose the future President instead. Now, after all these years, Boyce has a second chance. To what lengths will a shameless lawyer go to win the Trial of the Millennium and regain the love of his life?

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Satire, Politics, Mystery, Book Club, Comedy

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Christopher Buckley graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1976. He shipped out in the Merchant Marine and at age 24 became managing editor of Esquire magazine. At age 29, he became chief speechwriter to the Vice President of the United States, George H.W. Bush. Since 1989 he has been founder and editor-in-chief of Forbes Life magazine.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

He is the author of twelve books, most of them national bestsellers. They include: The White House Mess, Wet Work, Thank You For Smoking, God Is My Broker, Little Green Men, No Way To Treat a First Lady, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday and Supreme Courtship.

Mr. Buckley has contributed over 60 comic essays to The New Yorker magazine. His journalism, satire and criticism has been widely published—in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Washington Monthly, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, and other publications. He is the recipient of the 2002 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. In 2004 he was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Reviews

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny Ha-Ha, and Funny Strange

Humor is a funny thing. Not long ago I introduced Christopher Buckley to an audience of about 100 people in Berkeley. (No, I didn’t go to Yale with him. This was solely on the strength of having given favorable reviews to several of his novels.) Buckley spoke off the cuff rather than read from his writing, and I found him hilarious. So did about half the audience. Some seemed to be on the verge of falling off their chairs from time to time. But the other half of the audience sat stone-faced, often with arms crossed and eyes darting right and left, apparently waiting for a chance to sneak out of the room.

All this is to say that I read No Way to Treat a First Lady, laughing all the way — and maybe you won’t. Whenever as a child I told my mother that something was funny, she would ask, “Funny ha-ha, or funny strange?” Well, this one is a little of both. No Way to Treat a First Lady tells the tale of a philandering President and a long-suffering wife who has, apparently, murdered him in his sleep. See what I mean?

Christopher Buckley’s humor is grounded in such situations, not too many steps removed from reality. Don’t get me wrong. The leading characters in this novel in no way resemble two recent residents of the White House. And the supporting cast would be a better fit in a Marx Brothers film than in today’s Washington, DC: the best criminal defense lawyer money can buy, who incidentally was the jilted law-school lover of the First Lady; a blonde Court TV superstar, who is the current, much-younger squeeze of the self-important defense lawyer; bumbling rival trial attorneys; and a motley assortment of FBI and Secret Service agents and White House hangers-on. Even so, you can practically see them behind today’s headlines.

I won’t spoil the story by summarizing the plot, which is deliciously complex and as full of surprises as a best-selling thriller. You deserve the chance to discover it on your own.

Forewarned, then, that I think Christopher Buckley is one of the funniest writers currently walking the planet, I commend you to my previous reviews of his books: Little Green Men, Florence of Arabia, The White House Mess, and They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? If you read (or have read) these reviews, you know that I don’t think they’re all equally good — Florence of Arabia, for example, was just a little too real for me.

Pretty soon I’m going to run out of Buckley’s books, and I’ll just have to start reading them all over again.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An under-rated Buckley political satire. One of his best:
"Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, the First Lady of the United States, has been charged with killing her philandering husband, the President of the United States. In the midst of a bedroom spat, she allegedly hurled a historic Paul Revere spittoon at him, with tragic results. The attorney general has no choice but to put the First Lady on trial for assassination." Whoa!

The review you want to read here is by Mal Warwick, who also rated it at 5 stars:
"Pretty soon I’m going to run out of Buckley’s books, and I’ll just have to start reading them all over again." Indeed!

In more recent years, Buckley seems to have lost his edge. But in the Early Naughties, he was Golden!

Mrch 2023: I started a re-read, but it never really clicked, despite some VG moments. DNF & no plans to try again. I'm docking my rating a star.

[Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny throughout. A great send-up of politics in the 90's, ala the Clinton sex scandals- with a little murder for spice. So glad I finally picked up one of his books.

[Angie Boyter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and clever but also often off-color and in poor taste

[Jason Pettus]

THE‌ ‌GREAT‌ ‌COMPLETIST‌ ‌CHALLENGE:‌ ‌In‌ ‌which‌ ‌I‌ ‌revisit‌ ‌older‌ ‌authors‌ ‌and‌ ‌attempt‌ ‌to‌ ‌read‌ every‌ ‌book‌ ‌they‌ ‌ever‌ ‌wrote‌

Currently‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌challenge:‌ ‌Isaac‌ ‌Asimov's‌ ‌Robot/Empire/Foundation‌ |‌ ‌Margaret‌ Atwood‌ |‌ ‌JG‌ ‌Ballard‌ |‌ Clive‌ ‌Barker‌ |‌ Christopher‌ Buckley‌ |‌ ‌Jim Butcher's Dresden Files | ‌Lee Child's Jack Reacher | ‌Philip‌ ‌K‌ ‌Dick‌ |‌ ‌Ian Fleming | William‌ ‌Gibson‌ |‌ ‌Michel‌ Houellebecq‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Irving‌ |‌ ‌Kazuo‌ ‌Ishiguro‌ |‌ Shirley‌ Jackson‌ | ‌John‌ ‌Le‌ ‌Carre‌ |‌ Bernard‌ ‌Malamud‌ |‌ Cormac McCarthy | China‌ ‌Mieville‌ |‌ Toni Morrison | ‌VS‌ Naipaul‌ |‌ Chuck‌ ‌Palahniuk‌ |‌ ‌Tim‌ ‌Powers‌ |‌ ‌Terry‌ ‌Pratchett's‌ ‌Discworld‌ |‌ Philip‌ ‌Roth‌ |‌ Neal‌ Stephenson‌ |‌ ‌Jim‌ ‌Thompson‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Updike‌ |‌ Kurt‌ ‌Vonnegut‌ |‌ Jeanette Winterson | PG‌ ‌Wodehouse‌ ‌

Between his uproariously dark literary debut, 1994's lobbyist satire Thank You For Smoking, and his new string of historically accurate Medieval satires (such as 2015's The Relic Master, the purportedly true story of the con artists who faked the Shroud of Turin), I've become a big fan of political journalist turned comedic author Christopher Buckley, which is why I added him to the list of writers I'm tackling as part of The Great Completist Challenge. What I'm learning, though, is that like a lot of politically focused satirists, when Buckley isn't at the absolute top of his game, his exaggeration of archetypes can get obvious and plodding really fast, ruining any enjoyment you might've gotten from the wacky hijinx of the plot itself.

I first noticed this in his second novel, the "UFO panic" satire Little Green Men, which I eventually forced myself to finish against my will just to say that I had; but the problem gets exponentially worse in his third book, No Way to Treat a First Lady, so much so that I barely got even 50 pages into it before quitting it in bored disgust. Written during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal of the late 1990s, and published a year after Clinton left office, Buckley obviously got the inspiration for it from that situation -- it's the story of a strong, independent first lady who, increasingly disgusted with her husband's philandering, whips an antique bedpan at his head one night during a fight, accidentally kills him, then is put on trial by her opportunistic political opponents for assassinating a President, eventually hiring a flamboyant Johnny Cochran-type celebrity attorney to defend her.

It sounds like a great premise, definitely the consistently strongest part of Buckley's writing skills; but the actual manuscript is so ham-fisted and stereotype-beholden that one can barely get through it, so dedicated Buckley is to pushing these cardboard cutouts around as they increasingly get in the way of the plot he's trying to unspool. I will absolutely continue to make my way through his bibliography -- next on the list is 2004's Florence of Arabia, in which a low-level State Department flunky suddenly finds herself with a chance to introduce American-style liberal feminism to Qatar -- but certainly I'll be approaching all the rest of his books with low expectations, pleased when they turn out to be better than I hoped for but accepting when they invariably don't. You're best off approaching this definition of "hit-and-miss writer" yourself as well.

Christopher Buckley books being reviewed for this series: Thank You For Smoking (1994) | Little Green Men (1999) | No Way to Treat a First Lady (2002) | Florence of Arabia (2004) | Boomsday (2007) | Supreme Courtship (2008) | They Eat Puppies, Don't They? (2012) | The Relic Master (2015) | The Judge Hunter (2018) | Make Russia Great Again (2020)

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read most of Christopher Buckley's novels, I can attest to "No Way to Treat a First Lady" being one of his best. In one of his shorter novels Buckley ironically delivers some of the best characterization of his career and also avoids one of (what I consider to be) his most salient weaknesses, a terrible ending. I enjoy Buckley's novels for their humor, satire, and his prose style which is wonderful, with just enough educated diction to keep the mind pleased while delivering some off color humor in a manner that almost seems sophisticated, although it isn't and that is the point.
I won't get into much plot detail other than to say that the premise of the book is that the first lady is charged with killing her husband, the president. What ensues is some of Buckley's best satire and some of his funniest writing. I tore through this text mainly because it follows a trial and at times reads like a legal thriller, just one that is better written than most. The book also is peopled with a plethora of minor characters who don't come across so much as caricatures, but actual people, and this nice characterization allows the reader to more fully fall into, and enjoy, the world that has been created in the novel.
There is also pleasure to be had in recognizing thinly veiled parodies of real people among the book's characters. At times the parodies are quite savage, and I think well deserved. The reader gets to experience a little schadenfreude, and it enhances the book's guilty pleasures. Although frankly Mr. Buckley is too good a writer to be considered a guilty pleasure.
"No Way to Treat a First Lady" is a fun, plot driven sidewinder of a novel, and will yield you much entertainment. It is the perfect text to get through a cold winter weekend or a boiling summer sizzler. The clever climactic revelations and the satisfying and succinct ending will leave a smile on your face.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the political atmosphere seems to get worse and worse by the day, it feels almost quaint to recall the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Bill and Hillary! Bob Dole! W! Al Gore! Novelist Christopher Buckley does an excellent job conjuring up that era in his 2002 novel No Way to Treat a First Lady. In the novel, First Lady Elizabeth Tyler MacMann wakes up to find a dead president next to her in bed. The evening before, the couple had quarreled over the President’s late-night visit to the Lincoln Bedroom, where he had an assignation with singer and movie star Babette Van Anka. After questioning, the First Lady is arrested for the assassination of her late husband.

No Way to Treat a First Lady leads us through the “Trial of the Millennium” that inevitably ensues. The First Lady has entrusted one of the most famous defense attorneys in the country, Boyce “Shameless” Baylor to defend her. Awkward backstory: Boyce was engaged to Beth in law school, but she broke it off when she met the future President. Boyce has cycled through four marriages, the latest one lasting all of six months. As Boyce says, “We were blissfully happy the first two months.” (p.40) Boyce’s current flame is Perri Pettengill, who hosts a legal talk show called Hard Gavel. Perri is known for wearing very tight sweaters. She’s become so famous that “Tom Wolfe had mentioned her in an essay, calling her ‘the Lemon Tort.’” (p.14)

I won’t spoil any more of the plot, but Buckley does an excellent job of winding this improbable case through its many twists and turns. Buckley is especially adept and handling the back and forth of the courtroom scenes. You could make the argument that there’s no one to really root for in the novel, but once Buckley compared Beth to Natalie Wood, she instantly had my sympathy. And in my head, I had cast Alec Baldwin as Boyce Baylor, so I found pretty much anything Baylor said to be quite hilarious.

There are many humorous lines sprinkled throughout No Way to Treat a First Lady. The press’ nickname for Beth was “Lady Bethmac,” and Buckley gets off a great Macbeth pun by naming a Secret Service agent Woody Birnam.

My other favorite lines from the book include:

“Hypocrisy is a prerogative of the press but must under no circumstances be tolerated in politicians.” (p.24)
“Sometimes the American Dream, like God, works in mysterious ways.” (p.113)
I also laughed heartily at Boyce’s list of Baby Boomer accomplishments: “Disco, junk bonds, silicone implants, colorized movies, the whole concept of stress as a philosophical justification for self-indulgence.” (p.133)

Fans of Buckley’s other Washington, D.C. satires should note that John O. Banion, the lead character in Little Green Men, briefly appears, as does Nick Naylor, the unscrupulous lobbyist from Thank You for Smoking. Naylor has taken a job as a publicist for Babette Van Anka, a position that is more and more fraught with danger as the novel progresses.

Buckley relentlessly skewers the ridiculousness of the press throughout the book. There are also many opportunities for the skewering of the legal profession, and one of my favorite quotes was this one:

“There are few spectacles more pathetic than a roomful of otherwise responsible people trying to squirm out of a civic duty enshrined in Magna Carta as one of the signal boons of democracy. On the other hand, who in his right mind wants to serve on a jury?” (p.66)

As someone who has served on a jury, I can identify with that sentiment.

If you’re looking for an escape from the current political climate, you’ll enjoy No Way to Treat a First Lady.

[Kirstin · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you’re the First Lady and charged with murder, to whom do you turn? In the case of Beth MacMann, you call up your law school sparring partner, Boyce Baylor, now a sleazy but successful celebrity attorney whom you last saw when you jilted him for the man who’d become your husband. When sparks still fly as you work together to unravel the President’s death, is there any doubt that eventually you’ll find yourself fighting not just for your life but also for a second chance at love?

I picked this up at my grandmother’s suggestion earlier this year and was pleased to have done so. The story pulls you along quickly, the surroundings are peppered with my familiar D.C. scenery, and if the characters aren’t always likable, they do seem realistic. You end up rooting for Beth and Boyce to solve things quickly and to sort out their various entanglements. Plus the secondary characters, which include Babette Van Anka, the president’s paramour and a former B-grade singer/actress, are laugh-out-loud-worthy.

Want to read a book that epitomizes the ’90s, that combines the media circuses of the O.J. trial and the Monica Lewinsky scandal? This is the tale for you.

Buckley also wrote Thank You for Smoking, a hilarious parody of D.C. lobbyists, which I saw on film a few years back.

[Steve Chisnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally like Buckley's books, but he's now hit or miss with me. NWTFL is mostly a miss. While the cynical parody of the judicial system is entertaining enough, the characters are repulsive enough to hold the story at arm's length. And as for the resolution, a great disappointment. Read it for light nonsense with a chuckle or two. Or read my first and still favorite, Boomsday.

[Dar R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a pass-time really. Basically a beach book, or if you're in DC, a bar-book. If a woman had written it, they'd call it chick lit. Dick lit, I guess.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man book for men

[Steve Kettmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002:

First lady might be a murderer
Reviewed by Steve Kettmann

Sunday, October 13, 2002

No Way to Treat

a First Lady

By Christopher Buckley

RANDOM HOUSE; 288 PAGES; $24.95


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skewering Washington political culture with hilarious, over-the-top novels has always been a tough job, but it got a lot tougher during our long national obsession with Bill Clinton and the sordid details of his White House sex life.
How could anyone top this stuff? What could be more ludicrous?

No one would have blamed Christopher Buckley, author of the satires "The White House Mess" and "Thank You for Smoking," for throwing his hands in the air and giving up on this kind of book forever. Instead, "No Way to Treat a First Lady" succeeds despite seeming somehow redundant.

Here's the setup: A long-suffering first lady, incensed at her husband's latest infidelity, explodes in anger and heaves a historic Paul Revere spittoon at him. The next morning, the president is found dead, and first lady Elizabeth MacMann is charged with his murder.

During the ensuing "Trial of the Millennium," "Lady Beth Mac" (as the tabloids call her) swallows any reservations she might have and enlists the services of the nation's top trial lawyer, Boyce "Shameless" Baylor. Shameless happens to be an old flame from law school, one Beth unceremoniously dumped when she met the dashing, ambitious, White House-bound Ken MacMann.

Baylor takes the case with the idea of losing on purpose, reputation be damned, just to inflict a little long-deferred revenge. But that idea quickly goes out the window, along with any reluctance to pick up where they left off 25 years earlier.

Rich as the setup is, it almost doesn't matter. Buckley is at his best when he's having delirious fun with the details along the way, and like any great satirist, he tends to be funnier when he's also making a serious point. Buckley, editor of Forbes FYI magazine, taps a deep reservoir of insights on Washington and its media culture.

When Shameless, motivated by selflessness for a change, tampers with the jury, the FBI agents arrest him during his appearance on a TV morning program.

"The director of the FBI denied that the timing was intended to humiliate Boyce Baylor," Buckley writes. "The agents were simply following procedure. Of course no one believed this, much less the director of the FBI, but the media was so grateful to him for providing them with such a spectacular moment that they didn't press."

Describing the general in charge of the ultrasecret (and ultrapowerful) National Security Agency, he writes: "(Roscoe) Farquant was, as most NSA chiefs tended to be, a former military person. He looked it: trim, peach fuzz hair, glasses, eyes beady with the big-big secrets. He looked like a man who wouldn't tell God something on the grounds that God was not cleared to know."

Or how about the new president?

"President Harold Farkley was in the middle of a meeting with various princes of a Middle Eastern kingdom," he writes (read: Saudi Arabia). "He hoped to persuade them to increase their oil production in time to lower prices at the gas pump before the upcoming presidential election. He knew that in return they would ask him to sell them advanced U.S. fighter jets, ostensibly to protect their oil but really to annoy the Israelis. Thus the intractable American position in the Middle East: pleading with Arabs for more oil while providing their enemy with the latest weapons. Another day at the White House."

The book has many laughs, especially the wicked sport Buckley makes of Babette Van Anka, the film star paramour of the late president, who identifies herself, on the witness stand, under oath, as an "an activist in international affairs" because of all the valuable work she has done on behalf of Middle East peace.

Buckley's problem, though, is that laughing at presidential erections just isn't that fun. It doesn't transport us to some fresh new place, where the perspective is a little more clear, and absurdities are a little more tolerable for having been exposed. No, even two years after the Clinton era, chuckling over red-faced presidential huffing and puffing (or presidential dousing of the presidential privates in a glass of ice water) feels a little like sitting in the studio audience and following Jay Leno through one more tired routine. The big sign says "laugh," and laugh we do, but who can blame us for turning the page right away and getting on to the next bits?

That's not to knock Buckley. But here's hoping he's already hard at work on one or more follow-up volumes, say, something skewering the cartoonish style of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. If anyone can do it, Buckley can.

Steve Kettmann is the editor of "Game Time," an anthology of Roger Angell's New Yorker baseball writing, coming out in April.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...

This article appeared on page RV - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[Chaitra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was hilarious until Shameless became a little too besotted with the former First Lady. I still laughed a lot at the shenanigans, but not as much as the first half. I expected it to be boring but that it was decidedly not.

(Weirdly, this world has both Hillary Clinton and Lady Bethmac. It also has both O. J. Simpson and a J. J. Bronco who is clearly meant to be O. J.)

[Beth Medvedev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun!

[Gene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun thing to read, especially for those of us who despise most lawyers, politicians, and media personalities. Buckley makes skillful fun out of making these characters in his book about as unlikable as possible. It dealt with sex quite a bit, but we Americans are becoming used to having that as a part of our presidential politics. Not recommended for those who would rather not read something slightly off-color. But it really is humorous throughout, and though not gripping, the plot did keep my attention.

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star ratings are incidental with Buckley, the real star ratings are the enjoyment and comfort his books have always given me along the way

[ashley kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and quick read

[Felicia Roff Tunnah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good political riff - kept me entertained.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun book to read with a lot of lol moments. It was basically a satire on life in Washington DC pulling no punches at the politics, sex, government agencies, the media, and especially the legal community and its attorneys. The book was written in 2002 and is obviously a takeoff on the Clinton white house. The president in this case is a former war hero who has untold dalliances with a myriad of women. One night after such an affair in the Lincoln bedroom, he returns to bed with the first lady and is found dead in the morning. But how did he die? Well, the first lady, Beth, is charged with his murder by throwing an antique silver spittoon at the president causing a brain hemorrhage. This leads to the "trial of the millennium" presided over by the only judge that was not recluded from the trial. Beth's attorney is an old lover who she was formerly engaged to named Boyce "Shameless" Baylor, who will go to any extent to win a case, legal or otherwise.

This one was really over the top and is filled with political humor and situations that could well apply to the current Trump administration. I would mildly recommend this but for me it was maybe a little too much over the top.

[Lombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

We didn't have a very good library at my high school. So we traded books with each other and I was such an addict that I became a pro at jumping lines and convincing whoever was reading a novel I wanted that I could finish it before the next person even knew they had finished.When I got No way to treat a first lady I read and finished it swiftly. Loved it so much I read it again and still loved it. Unfortunately I had to pass it along to the next person else I definitely would have read it again!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the only Christopher Buckley I've tried, so I have no context for him. I'd have to say this is an enjoyable satirical romp through the Beltway, centered on a sex scandal in the White House (gee, who was he thinking of?), and while it had some really interesting stuff on jury analysis using the latest methods, the rest was pretty predictable. But he kept it moving.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not classic lit; it is totally over-the-top and ridiculous. If you want a light read that will make you laugh, this is it. Buckley's books fall into two camps, so ridiculous it's funny (such as Supreme Courtship, Little Green Men or Thank You for Smoking); or bad (like Florence of Arabia). This is one of the good ones.

[Sakshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Law, politics, humour, what's not to like?

[Sasha Rivers · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 starts for what it is - campy satire. So funny and so good I couldn't put it down. I thought it would be stupid when I picked it up but it was well written.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buckley takes to task high-powered defense lawyers, philandering Presidents, shady political donors, women who lust after men in power, the media's fascination with stories of improprieties of those in power, and in general the way that the Washington political establishment works to protect itself whenever it can. The President is found dead in his bed one morning, with a bruise on his head that matches an heirloom spitoon. The First Lady is accused of braining her spouse with said spitoon. She turns to her law school lover, now the city's most shameless defense attorney, to defend her. A media circus ensues, with many good jokes about lots of stuff. We eventually find that the horny Prez has been gulping Viagra supplied to him on the sly by his old Army buddy, and his current fuckbuddy anoints her quim with more crushed Viagra mixed into lubricant, and the overload overloaded his straining heart. The Navy pathologist hushed up his findings to make the Prez, a Navy war hero, not look like the horndog he was, but when he repents, and deposes the truth, the First Lady, called Lady BethMac (a play on her name) is exonerated.
A veritable hoot. Read as a recorded book, very well read by Grover Gardner, one of my favorite readers. Lots of laugh out loud situations, with the whole situation just twisted enough from real life to be amusingly feasible.
I will remember the court room scenes, the angles the lawyers try to play, the jury consultant who is constantly observing reactions and helping the defense to guide their strategy. I will remember the hauteur of the slutty actress who tries her damndest to not look like the slutty actress she is.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a run read that got a bit less fun the second half.

President Kenneth MacMann is having an affair with actress Babette Van Anka in the Lincoln bedroom. After a night of cheating, he and first lady Beth MacMann get into a fight where she throws a Paul Revere spittoon at his head. She wakes up the next day but he doesn't. Now everyone thinks she killed the president and she has to hire the best and most shameless lawyer to defend her. He's also an old flame that she left for in order to marry MacMann.

What follows is the "Trial of the Millennium" and silliness that comes with a trial of this magnitude coupled with a media that needs eyes glued. It's a mix of the OJ trail and the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal with inanity turned to 11.

It was a very fun read for the first half. Around the time Beth took to the stand, the story took a less fun turn. There were moments, but some of the air was let out. Things picked up at the end though as we finally find what actually killed the president, but nothing as zany as the first, say, third of the book.

I liked it and find myself a huge fan of Buckley. While I liked Little Green Men more than this one, I'm still looking forward to reading his other novels. 4/5.

[Taylor M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Christopher Buckley book I have read and I do think I will be checking out more of his writing based on it. Reading the book as a satire is so important in whether you like it or not because I think a lot of the characters in satires tend to be straw-man types, where they are relatively flat but the point it more about the message rather than the arcs. That being said, the lawyer forgave the First Lady so quickly that it almost gave me whiplash. This book needs to be read in one sitting because if you think about it too long it gets worse. I imagine it appeals a lot more to readers alive for the 2000 election but honestly politics have become so bizarre that this really isn’t satire anymore lol

[Keith Lytton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at a library sale...I like to read ..to me..new authors...

with that being said ...it is a quick read...it was a slow start and put it down many times...but it picked up steam about 30 percent in... I can't say I will be looking to read more by the author..again...not bad...but not great...I have hundreds of books on my to read list ...so this is down the list...

the ending fell together nicely...but one thing that bothered me were the stupid names...not nicknames...but names...such as "Alan Crudman", Damon Blowwell...it tried too hard to be funny at that point..

As always...best to decide for yourself...but this one...not for me

[Deirdre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I am easily entertained by a writer who knows how to use the English language so adeptly and artistically. Oh, and having a vocabulary that teaches you something new is also welcoming, but, of course, that would be expected from a son of the famous William F. Buckley, Jr., who used the word oxymoron on one of his shows in the 1960's and 50 million people hit their dictionaries.

Yes, I recommend this book to anyone who likes satire, entertaining courtroom dramas, and a laugh or two, or three or....

[Susan Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Buckley usually pokes fun by exaggerating. This time most of his barbs could have been taken right off the nightly news. The president of the United States is found dead in his bed next to the first lady - after a night of passionate sex with the actress staying in the Lincoln bedroom. The first lady is arrested and tried for the murder of her husband. Buckley even explains what really happened when they said the president choked on a pretzel. So much of it is so real it's almost not funny. But this time he actually had a pretty decent plot.