Book Reviews
Go To Hopkins & Company Homepage	Go to Executive Times Archives Go to Book Review List
No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley Rating: ••• (Recommended)
Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com
Chuckles Be careful where you choose to read Christopher Buckley’s new novel, No Way to Treat a First Lady. You’re likely to laugh out loud often enough that others may stare at you. After recent fictional excursions elsewhere, Buckley has returned to his content-rich home of Washington, DC and presents the story of a philandering President, who leaves a tryst in the Lincoln bedroom, returns to his own room, and is found dead the next morning. Over almost 300 pages, Buckley takes on White House sex, superlawyers and trials, the media, using his special skills to select names, images and scenes, that leave readers laughing and begging for more. The First Lady, Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, is accused of murder, assassination, actually, since her fingerprints were found on the Paul Revere spittoon, and the maker’s mark appears in reverse on the late President’s forehead. The media call her Lady Bethmac. Since everyone in DC has at least one association represents its interests, it’s no surprise that Lady Bethmac becomes a member of NAFFL, the National Association of Former First Ladies. One media outlet mentioned prominently is the National Perspirer. Buckley can’t resist keeping Dan Rather in character and creating the following dialogue (p. 276): “ ‘Folks,’ CBS News anchorman Dan Rather told his viewers, looking as if he might, finally, have a fatal nosebleed on live television, ‘this case has got more evolutions that a species in the Galapagos. We are told that a Dr. Laftos Crogenos, chief pathologist of the team that has performed the second autopsy on the remains of President MacMann, will be making an announcement shortly. Bob, that name, Laftos Crogenos, has more vowels in it that a bowl of alphabet soup after buzzards have finished picking out all the consonants. What do we know about him?’ ‘Dan, Dr. Crogenos is Greek, originally. But he is a naturalized American citizen’ - ‘So his sympathies, naturally, would be above question?’ ‘There’s apparently a saying, Dan, in the pathology community, that there are no nationalities around an autopsy table.’ “Good. That’s what Americans at this point need to hear.’ ‘Dr. Crogenos has been for many years chairman of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Johns Hopkins medical school. He has performed over fifteen thousand autopsies and is considered to be one of the best pathologists in the world. In the words of one colleague, this man can open you from stem to stern with his eyes closed.’ ‘This is no roadkill armadillo on Route 77 north of Corpus Christi he’s working on, but a former president of the United States of America.’ ‘There he is now. Dr. Crogenos is approaching the podium, accompanied by the five other medical examiners….’ ‘How does he look to you, Bob? What can we say from his expression?’ ‘Dan, it can’t be easy examining the corpse of a, well, any corpse. Especially one that’s been in the ground for over a year. But this one in particular, with the whole world watching over your shoulder, as it were. It has to be tremendous pressure.’ ‘I’d be jumpier than a coked-up Mexican who’d just found half a cucaracha in his guacamole. Let’s hear what he has to say.’” Beth’s lawyer, Shameless Baylor, attended law school with her, and they renew their relationship as her trial progresses. Enjoy Buckley at his best as you read No Way to Treat a First Lady. Steve Hopkins, October 23, 2002
ã 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the December 2002 issue of Executive Times For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 Phone: 708-466-4650 • Fax: 708-386-8687 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com www.hopkinsandcompany.com