Product Description

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, the ambitious First Lady of the United States (and known in the tabloids as “Lady Bethmac”), is on trial for the death of her philandering husband, and the only man who can save her is the boyfriend she jilted in law school—now the most shameless defense attorney in America. Published to rave reviews, No Way to Treat a First Lady is a hilariously warped love story for our time set in the funniest place in America: Washington, D.C.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57740 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-14
• Released on: 2003-10-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
Christopher Buckley is not so much a novelist as a free-ranging satirist looking for targets. In Thank You for Smoking it was big tobacco and earnest reformers; in God Is My Broker it was business and religion; and in No Way to Treat a First Lady, it's the entire legal profession, not to mention the Washington establishment. The novel opens with the President of the United States returning to the conjugal bed after an illicit Lincoln Bedroom romp with the Streisandesque Babette Van Anka. His wife, the long-suffering Beth McMann, promptly clocks him with a Paul Revere spittoon. Several hours later he dies. "Lady Bethmac," as the First Lady is immediately dubbed by the media, is put on trial, and the resulting media circus gives Buckley lots of opportunity for nicely observed skewerings of legal culture. "Judge Dutch creaked forward in his chair. This is the source of the aura of judges: they have bigger chairs than anyone else. That and the fact that they can sentence people to sit in electrified ones. It's all about chairs." He gets in some neat neologisms--a lawyer performs a "credibilobotomy" on a witness--and sends up the pretensions of law TV: at a roundtable discussion, the guest from Harvard Law is invited "to provide gravitas and to shift uneasily in his seat when the other guests said something provocative." Buckley's Trial of the Millennium is so far-fetched that it seems entirely possible. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly
The lurid sexual excesses that dominated presidential politics in the late '90s provide plenty of comic fodder for Buckley's latest satire, which doubles as a legal thriller that begins when President Ken MacMann is found dead in bed next to his wife after a vigorous night in a White House guest room with his latest mistress, film star Babette Van Anka. First lady Elizabeth MacMann whose tabloid nickname is Lady Bethmac is first on the suspect list, largely because she bopped Ken with an antique spittoon after his latest infidelity, leaving a bruise that spelled out Paul Revere's name on the late presidential forehead. Beth quickly hires an expensive, successful legal gun named Boyce "Shameless" Baylor, who also happens to be an old flame, and Baylor wades into the sordid mess, using the well-established tactics of tabloid trials to steer his client toward reasonable doubt. But Beth gets cocky after his initial success and insists on taking the stand to clear her reputation, a tactic that backfires so badly that Baylor is forced to resort to jury tampering to try to force a mistrial. Buckley has to use some obvious narrative cliches to get Baylor and MacMann out of the mess after they rekindle their romance, but the good news is that this book is more plot driven than Buckley's earlier satires, making it more coherent and effective over the long haul. The political humor is first-rate as usual, as Buckley has plenty of fun with the slimy, silly mess that is Beltway politics. This is one of his better efforts, which should keep Buckley on the "A" list of American satirists.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The first lady of Buckley's latest satire (after Little Green Men and Thank You for Smoking) is Elizabeth "Lady Beth Mac" MacMann, wife of President Kenneth Kemble MacMann. Kenneth, whose morals are as unreliable as a granny knot, meets an untimely death two and half years into his first term. Indicted for his murder, Elizabeth hires as her defender the one and only Boyce "Shameless" Baylor, to whom she had once been affianced. Elizabeth doesn't wear the widow's weeds long before she and her hotshot legal adviser get together for some unprotected fun in bed, with unintended but not unusual results. In strict story terms, the novel is a long tease-how many witnesses and how much testimony do we have to hear before finding out what really happened that fateful night in September? But it's worth the wait. The book is shot through with a particularly mordant vein of social satire and mocks the ludicrousness of modern life, something to which we've become numb. This should be on your list, near the top.
A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Slick, But Satisfying
Christopher Buckley slakes a reader's thirst for a juicy satirical legal thriller in _No Way to Treat a First Lady_. Set in a familiar Washington D.C. atmosphere of politics and sexuality, this is the story of a First Lady accused of assassinating the President of the United States of America in a marital dispute.

Beth MacMann (or "Lady BethMac" as the press has dubbed her) has called on Boyce Baylor, a defense lawyer as famous for his outrageous antics in the courtroom as he is for winning cases. He, however, just may lose this one to get even with Beth, who dumped him way-back-when in law school to marry the Man Who Would Be President. Rounding out the cast of characters is Babette Van Anka, famous actress/singer and Presidential consort, who was one of the last people to see him alive.

Buckley has written a fast-paced novel which sends up both the media and the courtroom in this circus of a trial. Though thinly-veiled references to real personalities seem a little mean spirited (e.g., "Greta Van Botox," a cable news personality), for the most part Buckley sticks to satirizing the institutions and societal values which make such a mockery of justice. Suspenseful, funny and truly an entertaining book.

Laughed so hard I cried
It's a cliché, but true! I immensely enjoyed "No Way to Treat a First Lady", and found myself chuckling almost constantly throughout, laughing out loud many times, and laughing uncontrollably on several occasions. If you read this book in public, as I did, be prepared to receive disapproving glances from others who aren't having as good a time as you are.

No Way skewers the Washington political scene, the legal profession, the media, and in particular the Clinton scandals and the O.J. Simpson trial. But ultimately, like all great satire, it is really a no-holds-barred look at our current societal mores and norms.

The main characters in No Way are all composites, which is how Christopher Buckley is able to construct a storyline that departs from the actual events it is satirizing, but is still fully recognizable by anyone who followed the news in the late 1990s. You'll enjoy picking out references to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barbra Streisand, Marc Rich, Alan Dershowitz, and of course Monica - plus many others. Even Nick Naylor, the hero of Buckley's "Thank You for Smoking", has a bit part in No Way.

I've read most of Buckley's books, and No Way is right up there with his best. I'd put "Thank You for Smoking" first by a hair, followed by No Way, then "God is My Broker". Thank You is slightly more timeless, as No Way's humor will dissipate somewhat with time, as people's recollections of the Clinton years fade.

Christopher Buckley can legitimately lay claim to being America's top working satirist. Keep them coming, Mr. Buckley, sir!

Political Satire at It's Best!
This book is so entertaining you will swear you're watching your favorite comedy show on TV. Buckley is one of the best political novelists of our generation. This story is brilliantly plotted, and the characters will remind you in a positive way perhaps of former White House residents. You know who I mean!

First Lady, Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, is charged with killing her philandering husband after he is found dead one night in bed. It so happens that earlier that evening he had spent time in bed with his mistress, Babette. After a bedroom spat, the first lady allegedly hurled a spittoon at him, with tragic results, or were they? Elizabeth (Beth) is put on trial for assassinating the president. Beth hires "Shameless" Baylor as her lawyer, who also had a steamy relationship with the first lady in the past. As the story twists and turns it gets funnier and more entertaining than one could ever imagine. What's to become of the First Lady? Is she really the killer or has she been set-up?

This is first-rate humor from an author who knows how to entertain his readers and keep them begging for more. What will he write next? I'm sure we will be surprised and again delighted. Enjoy this creative novel.

Joe Hanssen