Wry Martinis [Hardcover]

Christopher Buckley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1999

n the most inebriating humor book of the year, the author of Steaming to Bamboola and The White House Mess goes straight for the funny bone with essays and mischief that includes such gems of gullibility as the pope's appearance on Oprah, O.J. Simpson's search for a new apartment, the true story behind Whitewater, and so much more. Illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Wry Martinis is the perfect title for this intoxicating volume--though Christopher Buckley pretends he had a hard time coming up with it. But as his fans know, effortless superiority is Buckley's main m.o. In this collection of 20 years' of occasional pieces for such magazines as the New Yorker and the New Republic, he ranges from deadpan parody to devastating takes on all manner of American preoccupations, from celebrity to fly fishing to the Times bestseller list. (No. 2 in Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous: "Becoming God, by Beepah Doolik. Self-deification in a single afternoon.") Usually all it takes is a single sentence to set Buckley off. In 1994, when USA Today announced the expected launch of a 24-hour conservative cable network, he happily riffed on morning, afternoon, and nighttime programming. Suffice it to say that between 9 and 11 a.m., Phyllis! With Phyllis Schafly will hold the screen. That day's episode? "Pacific tuna fishermen explain how dolphins commit suicide by hurling themselves into the nets; also: how to tell if your son is queer." (Please head straight to page 12 for further listings.)

Not that our provocateur doesn't have his serious side, too. It shows up in his explorations of his own military envy, asthma, and cluster headaches, but also in some unlikely zones--including a sympathetic profile of Eppie Lederer, better known as agony aunt Ann Landers. (When Eppie tells Buckley that her husband left her, "an eyebrow arches, the right dimple deepens like a Florida sinkhole.") And then there is "My Own Private Sunday School," two pages on talking to his 6-year-old daughter about belief and death. Of course, even here the mischief-maker shines through, since the beginner's Bible Buckley buys is sorely lacking in verbal panache: "The chapter about the Roman discovering Jesus' empty tomb is titled 'Surprise!'--which is sort of cute, even if it does make a pretty crucial New Testament event sound a bit like a panel from Where's Waldo?" Buckley is ever on the hunt for our foibles and endless absurdities; and despite his seemingly straight-up hilarity, his method requires the utmost skill, imagination, and--oddly enough--affection. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The author of Thank You for Smoking has put together more than 65 bits and pieces of journeyman work (much of it very amusing indeed) from sources ranging from the New Yorker to the New York Times to Forbes to the Portsmith Abbey Alumni magazine. Touched on, usually quite briefly, are subjects such as mad cow disease (could the animals be used to counteract illegal emigration from Mexico?), drunken Yale undergraduates (a growth industry, it seems), presidential debates (which, he observes, would be improved if all involved had three martinis before things got under way) and the Unabomber (the next client of O.J.'s dream team?). There are also accounts of hoaxes successfully perpetrated by Buckley, including the well-publicized "rumor" that an impoverished Russia plans to auction off Lenin's embalmed corpse. The section called "Homage to Tom Clancy" is typical of the book's variety. It begins with a none-too-serious profile of the author written soon after the success of The Hunt for Red October, followed by a parody of Clancy as a U.S. senator, then a savage review of Debt of Honor (Clancy is "the James Fenimore Cooper of his day, which is to say the most successful bad writer of his generation"), followed by an exchange of actual faxes between an unamused Clancy and a puckish Buckley. As a comic, Buckley frequently suffers from the Saturday Night Live syndrome: his ideas are often funnier than his punch lines. But readers hell-bent on amusing themselves will find laughs enough here. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (April 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517372827
• ISBN-13: 978-0517372821
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,898,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christopher Buckley is the author of fourteen books, including "Supreme Courtship," "Boomsday," and "Thank You For Smoking." He is editor-at-large of "ForbesLife" magazine, and was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. He lives on the Acela train between Washington, D.C. and New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Someone wicked this way comes., September 19, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Wry Martinis (Hardcover)

I found a good illustration of Christopher Buckley's sense of humor while reading of one of the ocean crossings that he had taken with his Father. Buckley the Elder routinely sailed an ocean every 5 years or so, and his Son was often part of the crew. All the ship's members had tasks, and on this trip Christopher was in charge of bringing along projects for fun and diversion during the extended voyage. The one I will remember was the model he brought for the group to construct, of course a ship, and for him it could be no other, The Titanic.

His is not low brow cheap shot humor, although you may be surprised by how inept some other Authors are when engaging him in written debate. He writes within this book on a variety of subjects guaranteed to make you laugh, and for those that take themselves, or a given subject too seriously, he will annoy you. Even if the latter group is the one you find yourself in, if only to yourself, you still cannot deny the wit, and the intellect that is behind his thoughts.

So if The Pope appearing on Oprah selling his new book intrigues you, or perhaps Johnnie Cochran writing a letter of recommendation for the squeezed fruit who was his client piques your interest, this read is for you. If the two topics I mention do not suffice, there is always his written feud with Tom Clancy, satire on Star Trek, or perhaps the "How I went 9 G's in an F-16 and Only Threw Up Five Times", there is something here that will cause you great pain in your sides, as he is the cause of pain for his adversaries in their nether regions.

The stories I mentioned are a tiny fraction of what awaits the reader, for I have not touched upon the selling of Lenin's embalmed corpse.

Buckley the Younger is wonderful, or as the Author Tom Wolfe states "Fifty years ago the 3 funniest writers in the English language were named Shaw, Mencken and Muggeridge....today they're named Thompson, O'Rourke, and Christopher Buckley..."

If you have not tried this man's work, this is a great place to start.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than most books, but ho-hum for Buckley, September 25, 2002

By 

Tomato Pie "tomatopie" (West Chester, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wry Martinis (Paperback)

Chris Buckley is my favorite author, having written masterful satires like "Thank You for Smoking" and "Little Green Men." This is not a novel, as I was dismayed to learn, but just a collection of Buckley essays. Each is cute and funny, and the set makes for nice, lite, magazine-style reading. The essay about George Bush (Sr.) and martinis is hilarious -- I still refer to an extra-dry martini (just wave the vermouth bottle over the glass, not opening it) as the "George Bush" martini. Get this book if you have read everything else Buckley has written.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funniest books to hit the stores in some time., June 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Wry Martinis (Hardcover)

Wry Martinis is an easy to read, funny collection of essays. Buckley has a wry wit and his outlook on topics from the old Soviet Union to Fly Fishing will keep you laughing for quite a while. Especially fun is his fax feud with Tom Clancy