For all right thinking persons in America, William F. Buckley was an icon. He was a gifted, eloquent writer whose political and philosophical analytical skills were unsurpassed in the 20th century. His death last year was a huge loss that was recognized by public figures from across the political spectrum. After all, when the leftist octogenarian George McGovern makes an immense physical effort to fly across the country to attend the conservative Buckley's memorial service (in Saint Patrick's Cathedral of course), it says something about the esteem that the arch conservative had gathered from the political elite of his time - whatever their philosophical point of view. Now Buckley's only son, Christopher Buckley, has come forth with a memoir of both his father and his mother in a book that clearly carries the Buckley stamp: LOSING MUM AND PUP: A MEMOIR is stylish, insightful and the prose comes across like some sad but lyrical adagio. There is, however, good and bad news about this book The good news: LOSING MUM AND PUP is at once an amusing and a very, very well written book, something one would expect from the son of the erudite William F. Buckley. For Christopher, Bill Buckley was the dominant influence in his life. Even though they had their difficulties, the elder Buckley was clearly a mentor to "Christo" (his father'snickname for his son) and when the young Buckley set off on his own in the real, grown-up world, he became a writer, just like his father. The bad news: This book probably tells a lot more than his parents might have wished. Young Buckley (figuratively speaking -- after all, as he was 56 years of age on publication of this book) takes on both his mother and his father in a manner where no holds are barred. The son writes that his father was not only a brilliant writer, he was a dominating father whose weaknesses (impatience, a domineering manner and an unfortunate reliance on alcohol and pills) had an adverse impact on their relationship. The two were close but not totally harmonious. The young Buckley describes any number of instances when his Dad causes him both pain and disappointment. The disappointments have been so many that at the end of the elder Buckley's life, when Christo cancels family plans to stay with his failing Dad, the father tells the son he would have done the same for him if their roles were reversed. As an aside, the younger Buckley tells his readers the elder Buckley would never have changed his plans in similar circumstances. "I smiled and thought, 'Oh no, you wouldn't'," Christo writes. "A year or two ago, I might have said it out loud, initiating one of our antler clashes. But watching him suffer had made my lingering resentments seem trivial and beside the point." The sections of this book about Bill Buckley are probably the most interesting, because of his public notoriety. But the remembrances of young Buckley's mother, Patricia Buckley, are more sensitive. Indeed on completing the book, one has to wonder whether the young Buckley was more his mother's son than his father's. The cover of the book features a portrait of the author and his parents. It is a handsome family, to be sure, but on studying the photograph, one has to conclude that Christo has the same penetrating, curious look of his Mother, rather than the aloof, superior countenance of his father. Yet one cannot imagine a more dashing, daring family than the Buckleys, and young Buckley leaves no question that his family established itself as one of the most prominent American families in the 20th century (in the book, Christo drops names like his parents dropped pills). Pat Buckley was stylish and became the doyenne of Manhattan society. She had her foibles, of course, as reported by her son. She was a consummate liar who on a whim made up stories out of whole cloth. Like Bill, she drank too much and she popped pills like candy. Her behavior was at times so outrageous that on occasion her son would write her letters scolding her: "Dear Mum," he wrote in a letter that he found, unopened, after her death. "That really was an appalling scene at dinner last night...." Christopher discovered after her death that she left many of his letters unopened, apparently fearing more criticism from her son. Indeed, when her time finally came, when she was unconscious on her deathbed, the young Buckley stroked his mother's hair and whispered: "I forgive you." Later, in his memoir, Christopher recalled: "It sounded - even to me at the time - like a terribly presumptuous statement, but it needed to be said." The bottom line on this book: one could argue that a family memoir should uphold the family legacy, and if that is true, all the dirty laundry in this book tarnishes the Buckley aura. On the other hand, one has to concede that if, in the end, every genuine legacy has to be founded on honesty, then Christopher Buckley has polished, to the good, the memory of his parents. Would the family patriarch agree? In his book, Christo tells how his father once he sent him an email upon publication of one of the son's books: "This one didn't work for me. Sorry. xxB." Would WFB have a similar reaction if he could come back to life and read his son's book on Mum and Pup? My guess is that he would, grudgingly, approve (in spite of the younger Buckley's endorsement of Barack Obama). But then we'll never know, will we?
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