In bestselling author Christopher Buckley's hilarious novel, the President of the United States, ticked off at the Senate for rejecting his nominees, decides to get even by nominating America's most popular TV judge to the Supreme Court. President Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees onto the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill a Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the nerve to reject her--Judge Pepper Cartwright, star of the nation's most popular reality show. Will Pepper, a vivacious Texan, survive a Senate confirmation battle? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature. Supreme Courtship is another classic Christopher Buckley comedy about the Washington institutions most deserving of ridicule.
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An Essay from Christopher Buckley
Somewhere in this brilliant, hilarious, impossible-to-put-down--to say nothing of moderately priced--new book of mine, the narrator notes that appointing a Supreme Court justice is pretty much the most consequential thing a president can do, short of declaring nuclear war; more to the point, that this fact is generally pointed out every four years by whoever is running second in the presidential election.
The Supreme Court is by any definition the most important branch of government. Who else has the power to say--without fear of being contradicted by someone higher up the food chain--"Congratulations, you just won the presidential election, even though the other guy got more votes!" Or, "We really feel awful about this, but you have to be lethally injected tonight at midnight."? If you're on the Supreme Court, you are the top of the food chain.
I've written satires about other Washington institutions. It never occurred to me to try one about the Supreme Court, for the reason that I never found it particularly funny. It was my editor, Jonathan Karp, who suggested it, and if the book turns out to be a stinkeroo and bombs, I am going to petition the Court to have him lethally injected.
At some point, while scratching my noggin and trying to come up with some way into a satire about the Marble Palace, I scribbled on a legal pad (how appropriate is that?): Judge Judy on the Court.
I called Karp and ran it past him. He laughed, which I always take as a good sign, since he doesn't laugh at 99 out of 100 of my genius ideas.
My Judge Judy is a sexy Texan named Pepper Cartwright. She was an actual judge before she became a TV hottie. How, you ask, did she get on the Court in the first place? Well, it all starts on page one where--did I mention how moderately priced the book is?
--Christopher Buckley
Sometimes, the real-life actions of politicians and celebrities are so absurd it seems that satirists like Christopher Buckley must struggle to stay one step ahead of the headlines. In Buckley’s newest novel, Hollywood and Washington overlap (reminding some reviewers of Senator Fred Thompson’s White House bid and television career), and the vote of a single Supreme Court justice decides a presidential election (drawing inevitable comparisons to Bush v. Gore). The novel pleased most critics, who found Buckley in top form. A few, however, were disappointed in what they felt to be one-dimensional, lampooned characters and a complete lack of subtlety. Still, even if the novel’s broad humor is not everyone’s cup of tea, there’s plenty to laugh at in Supreme Courtship.
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Washington politics is the fountain of satire, and prolific, multitalented Buckley has been imbibing its elixir for years. Following Boomsday (2007), his hilarious take on the impending Social Security meltdown, Buckley targets the fraught relationship between the president and U.S. Supreme Court while continuing his disparagement of the insidious blurring of reality and TV. The wretchedly unpopular and morose President Vanderdamp has to come up with yet another nominee for the Supreme Court because Dexter Mitchell, the botoxed, mannequin-haired chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and presidential wannabe, has viciously shot down two perfectly respectable candidates. Jaws drop when Vanderdamp picks Pepper Cartwright, the irresistible, sharp-tongued, whip-smart Texas judge on everyone’s favorite TV courtroom show. What will the uptight and polarized Supreme Court justices make of this sassy interloper? Will “Kiss my Ass” Pepper be the proverbial breath of fresh air or a tabloid disaster? Buckley’s ingenious and mischievous tale of a Washington shakeup via an injection of good old American authenticity is funny and entertaining yet disconcertingly toothless. You would think that in a time of endless debacles and disasters what’s called for is take-no-prisoners satire, a torch not a pacifier. Instead, Buckley delivers a clever, merry, escapist little parody. OK, sedatives are useful, but let’s hope he has his claws out next time around. --Donna Seaman
Review
"One of the funniest writers in the English language." (Tom Wolfe)
"The quintessential political novelist of our time." (Fortune)
"An accomplished comic novelist and raucously funny political satirist." (Sunday Times of London)
"One of the rarest political specimens-- the authentically comic writer." (Boston Globe)
Buckley's ingenious and mischievous tale of a Washington shakeup via an injection of good old American authenticity is funny and entertaining . . . clever, merry, escapist. (Booklist)
"Christopher Buckleyis America's greatest living political satirist. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it . . . Just take my word for it, and the word is: delicious." (Seattle Times Adam Woog)
"Once again, Buckley returns to his pet theme: the vanity and perfidy of the capital's ruling elite. And once again he delivers serious insights along with antics . . . Buckley has fun with the court's fractious politics and even more fun riffing on the strange creatures and customs of its marble halls . . . Buckley lampoons as an insider. A onetime speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, he knows the monograms on the linens and has supped with kings. But he's more an anthropologist than a settler of scores. His own libertarian-leaning politics shine through his narratives without weighing them down. And he's admirably fair-minded, skewering politically correct crusaders on one page and holy-rolling bigots on the next. His villains are Washington's ideologues, left and right, whose principles always boil down to self-regard. Buckley's heart belongs to the outsiders and mavericks who see through all the spin. Each of his novels may be light as air, but bit by bit they're building up into a significant social portrait, the beginnings of a vast Comédie-Washingtonienne . . . At a time of high political absurdity, Buckley remains our sharpest guide to the capital, and amore serious one than we may suppose." (New York Times Review of Books Blake Wilson 2008-01-00)
"Hilarious . . . the book is full of wry observations on the follies of Washington high life. What makes it laugh-out-loud funny is Buckley's sense of how little you have to exaggerate to make Washington seem absurd." (New York Daily News)
"As Jon Stewart proves, Washington is an easy target to satirize with its hypocrisy, ego-powered politicians and endless hot-air emissions. What sets Buckley apart is his ability to mock Washington yet convey a genuine admiration for many of its residents . . . Buckley remains hilarious." (USA Today)
"[Supreme Courtship] is full of such tasty nuggets, along with arcane Latin phrases and mirth-inducing names like Blyster Forkmorgan . . . One of the book's telling points is that he never mentions which poltical parties these folks represent, and you realize it doesn't much matetr. When you are sketching a political cartton, donkeys and elephants alike are juicy targets."
(Hartford Courant)
"You can't make this stuff up . . . Unless of course you are Christopher Buckley, son of the late William, whose fictional satires are must-reads for those looking to understand our cultural moment, or at least have a few laughs at it. Buckley is a master at cooking up scenarios that are wild without being entirely absurd and populating them with attractive characters..." (Chicago Sun Times)
"The premise of Christopher Buckley's new political comedy, Supreme Courtship, isn't all that far-fetched. In fact... this novel could more accurately be called near-fetched -- disarmingly, hilariously so... You'll be belly-laughing through Buckley's byzantine plot, which includes Peester v. Spendo-Max Corp., a case in which a male shoplifter stuffing merchandise into a burqa sues the Reno police force for racial and religious profiling, and ends with the Supreme Court deciding a presidential election. As the president sighs, "It's not as though we haven't been there before." Last go-around, it wasn't quite so uproarious." (The Washington Post Lisa Zeidner)
About the Author
Christopher Buckley, "the quintessential political novelist of his time" according to Fortune magazine, is the winner of the distinguished ninth annual Thurber Prize for American Humor. Tom Wolfe has described him as "one of the funniest writers in the English language."
Buckley is the author of eleven books, many of them national bestsellers, including Thank You For Smoking, God Is My Broker, No Way To Treat A First Lady, and Florence of Arabia. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages, including Russian and Korean.
From The Washington Post
The premise of Christopher Buckley's new political comedy, Supreme Courtship, isn't all that far-fetched. In fact, after Fred Thompson's bid to bring law and order to the White House, this novel could more accurately be called near-fetched -- disarmingly, hilariously so.
President Donald Vanderdamp, the most loathed POTUS in history, is outraged to have two Supreme Court nominations crushed. To spite Dexter Mitchell, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Vanderdamp taps Perdita "Pepper" Cartwright, the sassy judge of a TV courtroom show. The straight-talking Texan proves so wildly popular that her confirmation sails through and Vanderdamp's approval ratings soar. Humiliated, Mitchell resigns his Senate seat to star as president in his own TV show, which then proves so wildly popular that he runs for president, campaigning with his hot TV wife rather than his actual wife.
"You can't tell anymore what's real and what isn't," President Vanderdamp complains. "Everything's all jumbled. The world has been reduced to a wide-screen TV." While the insight isn't exactly original, Buckley has some serious fun with his very-close-to-real-life Supreme Court, which includes Silvio Santamaria, a supercilious arch-conservative, and glum Crispus Galavanter, who "occupied the 'black seat' on the court, though it was seldom openly referred to as such."
The novel's comic centerpiece is Swayle v. Rimski Firearms, a case in which a criminal sues a gun company for a trigger malfunction during a bank robbery. When Pepper casts the deciding vote in favor of the bank robber, the plot thickens, as public outcry leads to one-term limits on the presidency.
The courtship of the title refers to Pepper's affair with Chief Justice Declan Hardwether. Pepper and "Chiefy" share a delightful meet-cute when she disrupts his suicide attempt and the two parry about whether she's "construing too narrowly" in positing a "duty to care."
You don't read a Buckley novel for the depth of character development. With her rodeo slang and cowboy boots, Pepper is Texas-trite, but no matter. You'll be belly-laughing through Buckley's byzantine plot, which includes Peester v. Spendo-Max Corp., a case in which a male shoplifter stuffing merchandise into a burqa sues the Reno police force for racial and religious profiling, and ends with the Supreme Court deciding a presidential election. As the president sighs, "It's not as though we haven't been there before." Last go-around, it wasn't quite so uproarious.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
