Losing Mum and Pup A Memoir
Posted by HDTV in eBooks May 31st, 2009 | no responses
“One of the funniest writers in the English language.” (Tom Wolfe )
“Read LOSING MUM AND PUP and you’ll realize it would have been a mortal sin to have not written this book . . . Because he can write, because he cared and was perhaps driven to it, Christopher Buckley has given us– and the ages– something of his parents. Read his book and you sense truly that you know them.” (Chris Matthews )
“Christopher Buckley’sLosing Mum and Pup appears like a cheerful beacon . . . Buckley’s remembrance of his famous folks is refreshingly different . . . What you remember from Losing Mum and Pup aren’t the sad endings; you end Losing Mum and Pup dazzled by the Buckleys as people.” (USA Today )
“LOSING MUM AND PUP is a subtle, fond, and, above all, honest chronicle of his celebrated parents. This is an important work, at once unsparing and gracious-and that is no small achievement . . . The anecdotes are rich and numerous . . . Buckley has pulled off what eludes many writers: he has written candidly but not unkindly about people whose vices and virtues he sees clearly.” (Newsweek )
“Smartly written… an improbably funny book that will hit home hard… Read it and chortle. Read it and weep.” (New York Times Janet Maslin )
“Dazzlingly written.” (National Review )
“Intense, beautifully written and often achingly personal . . . One suspects that somewhere, beyond all this, Bill and Pat Buckley are very proud of their son.” (Washington Times )
“The memoir is loving, exasperated and very funny. In its moments of real ambivalence, LOSING MUM AND PUP is surprisingly strong drink… [Pat Buckley] remains glamorous even when she’s impossible… The writing, like the book’s subjects, is generally top-drawer. To take but one example: “the elder George Bush “may be New England Yankee blue blood, but he has the tear ducts of a Sicilian grandmother.” The yield of such lines is exceptionally high, and it’s fair to say that the particular talent required to produce them is one of the few that William F. Buckley lacked. [Christopher Buckley's] own considerable accomplishment is to have emerged from two large colorful shadows as very much his own writer and very much his own man.” (New York Times Review of Books )
“There are also many touching moments . . . what’s become clear is that the book, for all its hype-oriented excerpts, is really much more akin to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking than to any of Chris Buckley’s own biting and wry prose. And the best evidence that it will do well is that each time one of these damn segments comes out, even if they’re all a repeat, we just keep reading them.” (New York Magazine )
“Satirist Christopher Buckley writes honestly and with touching humor about the recent passing of his legendary parents.” (Elle )
“With characteristic asperity and immeasurable tenderness, Christopher Buckley mourns his legendary parents.” (Vogue )
“Whether or not your parents are Pat and William F. Buckley, it’s wrenching to say goodbye . . . LOSING MUM AND PUP is emphatically as billed: occasionally about family life but mostly a sad, intermittently angry and ambivalent chronicle of illness, decline and bereavement . . . wonderful detail . . . This was not the book Christopher Buckley was meant to write. But it’s the one he had to, and that gives it great punch.” (Town and Country )
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Evokes the large spirit of William F. Buckley
I was never a fan of the late William F. Buckley’s politics and I disliked his arrogance and supercilious attitude toward many of his guests on Firing Line. Yet, I could not help but admire his articulateness and his wit. His son Christopher has inherited both that articulateness and wit, but seems a much more likable person than his dad was. He has written a highly readable and thoughtful account of what it was like to be raised in this high energy family with amazing candor and in the kind of beautifully honed sentences you might expect from a Buckley. He spares us little of both his father’s and mother’s shortcomings, but he clearly loves them both and cherishes his memories of them. I miss the large presence of William F. Buckley in the world (as I said, despite his politics) and Chris does a fine job of evoking his presence for us.
5 Stars An absolute delight
Having had the pleasure of musically entertaining the Buckleys and being a guest in their New York apartment, “Losing Mum and Pup” was a great expectation for me, especially having read parts of the book serialized recently in the New York Times. Christopher Buckley has presented a poignant and often wildly funny look back on his parents’ lives. What a duo they were!
The author discloses much, but revealing his own emotions in dealing with his parents’ decline makes this book shine. Anecdotes dot the landscape in the memoir and his closeness (yet sometimes distance!) with Mum and Pup helps the reader understand the younger Buckley’s particular intimacy with them toward their end. The narrative of “Losing Mum and Pup” never lets down and his witty way with words keeps us with a smile throughout…even at the hardest times for him.
There is an added plus for perhaps a small slice of the reading public. If you are in your mid-fifties, as I am, and about to lose both parents, his advice is taken to heart, especially prenegotiating the funeral expenses! Christopher….thanks for that tidbit…and thanks for the wonderful book.
3 Stars A MIXED BAG
Christopher was working through his emotionally charged relationship with Bill and Pat. Understandable.
Mostly, this makes for stimulating reading. But, there is a point where some semblance of good taste should create boundaries. Some respect is due. Both to the parents and to the sensibilities of the reader.
I refer, mainly, to the segment in which Chris finds it necessary to describe in great detail the quality of his dying father’s urine. The pages devoted to Bill’s coping with BPH are, also, unnecessary and demeaning.
My sense is that the son’s hostility to his dad goes far beyond what he is willing to admit.
There must be a line between satire and mean spirits; Christopher Buckley seems oblivious to this line.
I held, and continue to hold, Bill Buckley in high esteem. In spite of his son’s lack of sensitivity.
From what I have read, most recently, Christopher’s moral compass needs some consideration and readjustment.
4 Stars Not What I Feared It Might Be
This book was not not the vicious rant I feared it would be, and shame on me for thinking it could be anything else. It was a warm, loving, compulsively readable account of the author’s experiences tending to his well-known parents during their final days. Despite the grievances any child might have with his parents (and Buckley certainly has a few that some of us will never know), the author treats the subject as fairly as one could expect of anyone in his position. Reading this increased my respect for Christopher Buckley’s skills as a writer; like father, like son, more than a few times I found myself reaching for a dictionary.
5 Stars Brilliant, moving, and even funny
Brilliant, funny, heart-wrenching. My parents were neither quite as odd nor as famous, but otherwise, Christopher Buckley’s experience with their death was remarkably similar emotionally to mine. The mix of pain and humor, of finding oneself in ludicrous situations while trying to protect a parent from a painful reality or from their own impulses. I too am an only child who was ‘careless enough’ to lose both parents within a short time (6 weeks in my case).
Buckley’s writing, rhythm, and humor make sparkle what could have been painful tales, the kind you want to nudge anyone nearby and say ‘listen to this.’ Part of sharing the experience with him is that we all know of so many of the people and events involved, so many of the books and quotes, and spiritual challenges. I knew almost nothing about Pat Buckley, but I was able to relate, especially having had a similarly imperious mother (who is gone or I wouldn’t have dared say that in public).
One doesn’t have to have agreed with William F. Buckley, Jr. to appreciate his wry brilliance or discount his flaws. Take it from a female, Jewish, liberal. It probably helps to have heard him speak, have read his words, or watched the amazing Firing Line, but that makes for a fairly large audience who will be able to hear him through his son’s words. A son whose love, admiration, frustration, and humanity are clear in every paragraph.
I have heard some people are upset and claim a negative portrait of Buckley emerges. Have we read the same book? For me, it made him more understandable and true to his very strong principles.
Good book, good job, thank you for writing.
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