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No Way to Treat a First Lady
by Christopher Buckley
A funny, often racy, satire.
Christopher Buckley writes some of the best satire
being published these days. Thank You for Smoking explored
advertising and Little Green Men dealt with UFOs and TV's talking
heads. In No Way to Treat a First Lady, Buckley's targets lawyers and
the legal system and scores a bull's eye.
Controversial First Lady Elizabeth Tyler MacMann (picture Hilary Clinton
as a knockout) shares the White House with her philandering war hero
husband, President Ken MacMann (think Bill Clinton and John McCain). One
night the President slips back into his bedroom after a few hours of bliss
with an actress who is staying in the Lincoln bedroom. The First Lady
knows the “raccoon” look on her husband's face and, in her fury, hurls a
Paul Revere spittoon at him. Though the spittoon strikes the Presidential
skull, he seems OK and climbs into bed. The next morning the President is
found dead in bed with a bruised forehead. The First Lady—now Lady
BethMac in the tabloids—is accused of murder and the “trial of the
millennium” is set to go.
To defend her, Beth MacMann hires the best trial lawyer in America, Boyce
“Shameless” Baylor, to whom she had been engaged when they were both law
students at Georgetown. When Beth MacMann says! she just wants to tell the
truth during her trial, Baylor replies that “The truth has no place in a
court of law.” What follows is a tale with more twists than a Chubby
Checker song. Buckley brings in the FBI, the Secret Service, the National
Security Agency, White House staff, Latin American revolutionaries, and a
spy for the Chinese. Even John Oliver Banion, the hero of Little Green
Men, makes a cameo appearance.
It's often easy to figure out the people on whom Buckley's characters are
based. There is talk, for instance, in the novel about a case in which
lawyers Alan Crudman, Barry Strutt, and Lee Vermann defend a famous client
named J. J. Bronco. If this doesn't remind you of a real murder trial in
which lawyers Alan Dershowitz, Barry Scheck, and F. Lee Bailey defended a
client also known by his first two initials, who took a ride in an SUV
(get it? Bronco?)--close the book.No Way to Treat a First Lady is a funny, often times racy, tour de force.
Title: No Way to Treat a First Lady
Author: Christopher Buckley
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0375507345
Review written by: William Keogan
Reviewer's Rating:8.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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