Did Christopher Buckley Betray His Father?

Fathers and Sons

A Book Review by Joan Frawley Desmond

Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir

Christopher Buckley, Twelve, 272 pages, $24.99

And Noah, a farmer, planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and was uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Cannan, saw his father uncovered and he denounced him to his two brothers outside. And Shen and Japheth took a robe and put it on both their shoulders and went backwards and covered the shame of their father (Gen 9:20-23).

When the relatives and friends of William F. Buckley and Patricia Taylor Buckley first learned that Christopher Buckley, the satirical novelist, was completing a memoir of the year during which he lost both his parents, there was considerable and well-founded alarm. All three Buckleys had enjoyed famously contentious relations, and, in recent years, Christopher had not only confirmed his agnosticism on matters religious, but went so far as to announce his plan to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

Has Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir confirmed the worst fears of Buckley loyalists? The appearance of a portion of the book in the New York Times Magazine suggests that the scion has provided a juicy deconstruction of a conservative icon. Readers are invited to feast on a series of delicious vignettes that strip away the parents' public charisma and reveal their profound limitations in domestic relations. Mom is a serial liar and self-justifying socialite who never apologizes for routine bad behavior. Dad is a frenetic "great man" and control freak who impatiently abandons his only son on the day of his college graduation.

What more is there to be said? A great deal, actually. Not only does the younger Buckley acknowledge many rich and distinctive moments of parental love and devotion, the narrative reveals something more than the author may have intended: the connection between this ambivalent portrait of his parents and his own waning faith in God. To this reviewer, his critique of the Buckley paterfamilias reads like an attempt to demystify and exorcise the inconvenient Catholic values that shaped the author's upbringing and still plague his conscience.

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William F. Buckley: May He Rest In Peace

William F. Buckley, Jr.

1925 - 2008

From National Review Online

By Peter Wehner

There will be many people who knew Bill Buckley far better than I who will attest to his personal kindness and grace over the years. And many people will pour forth with testimonies about Mr. Buckley's monumental role in the history of modern conservatism. I simply want to recount his role in my own pilgrimage of faith.

When I was a young Christian, I happened to come across a re-broadcast of a Firing Line episode in which Mr. Buckley interviewed the British journalist and author Malcolm Muggeridge. The subject was Muggeridge's Christian faith. I had never heard of "St. Mugg" before - but as I watched the interview, I was utterly captivated by the conversation. It was a remarkable, intellectually serious, uplifting, and even moving discussion between two close friends, united in common purpose. That interview became a kind of touchstone for me, one that I still return to (via videotape) from time to time. Years later, I corresponded with Mr. Buckley about this interview, and about faith more broadly. He was as gracious - more gracious - than I could have hoped for.

William Buckley was many remarkable things. But he was, perhaps above all, a good and faithful servant of the Lord. And now he is in the company of his Lord and his beloved wife Pat, in a place where there is no more death or mourning, crying or pain, and where every tear has been wiped away. And with Messrs. Buckley and Muggeridge together again, the conversation has gotten even better, even richer.

God bless William F. Buckley, Jr.