A Hilarious Legal Satire

The first lady of the United States, Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, is charged with the murder of her philandering husband, the President, by allegedly hitting him with an antique spittoon. To defend her, she reluctantly engages Boyce "Shameless" Baylor, the fiance whom she dumped for the President 25 years ago, as he is the best lawyer in the nation. Never popular with the press, the first lady's impending trial has the whole nation in a frenzy.

The summary above may read like the synopsis of a typical Fabio-adorned romance novel but trust me, the book is not.

No Way To Treat A First Lady is a wicked first-class satire, a rollicking riot. It is wholly absurd and impolitically correct at places but you just know not to take it seriously. When Buckley's novel is read as a farce or a comedy, it is fabulously funny and makes for great reading. I laughed out so many times and finished the book in three hours. The whole story is smart, sharp and slick, and the main characters trade fast and furious witty quips akin to Singaporeans on the North-South Highway.

I'd never read Christopher Buckley before and after doing some research, found out that he's been called "America's best and surest political humorist". Now I'm determined to hunt down the rest of his books. Here's an excerpt from No Way To Treat A First Lady:

His secretary announced simply, "It's her."

There was no ambiguity as to who "her" might be, not after the force twelve media storm of the previous weeks. The country was convulsed. Seven-eighths of the nation's front pages and the evening news was devoted to it. If war had broken out with Russia and China, it might have made page two.

"Shameless" Baylor had spent much of the previous seventeen days wondering if Beth MacMann would have the balls to call him.He was, at age not quite fifty, the top trial attorney in the country. He had been the first lawyer to charge $1,000 per hour, which-for too long-had been considered the unbreakable sound barrier of legal billing.

There were half a dozen second-best trial attorneys each of whom, naturally, considered him- or herself the top trial attorney in the country. But none of them had been simultaneously on the covers of all three weekly newsmagazines, none had been portrayed in movies by a famous British actor pretending to be American. None owned a professional baseball team. And, to be sure, none had been married and divorced four times. The previous record had stood at three. That he had any assets left after such serial marital wreckage was perhaps the greatest testament to his courtroom skills.

Profiles of Christopher Buckley from BookHelpWeb and Greater Talent Network
Interview with Christopher Buckley from Double Think