Rating:  -
Christopher Buckley has produced a very intense and personal memoir of the passing of his parents. Having lost both his parents within the space of a year to debilitating diseases, one might expect the memoir to be depressing. That is not this book. What Buckley has produced instead is a touching, sometimes sad, sometimes wry account, always very detailed account of the last year of his life with his father.
The memoir is personal. It is detailed. At times I ached as I read through Mr. Buckley's travails. But it is not simply a deathbed narrative of the unfortunate demise of Pat and William Buckley. Instead it is a memoir of the the Buckley family - a very busy father, a glamorous fashionable hostess mother, and a child who sometimes struggles to fit in.
It's a wonderful memorial to two larger than life parents, from a son who loved them very much.
Rating:  -
This is not actually a review of the book, but a complaint about the last of the cd's in the audio version I chose instead of the printed book. The audio stopped, abruptly, before the end of the book, a fact I was able to verify by looking at a print copy of it in a local book store. The final chapter, or at least several pages of it, was omitted.
Rating: -
I didn't set out to read this book. I was looking for another book and this one came (a marketing ploy by Amazon, ya know) as something others who read the book in question have ordered. So I bought it and read it in about 5 hours. Hmmmm. A lot of money for a tiny book. Anyway, it is interesting but not compelling. But what could I expect from a person who rode in on his father's coattails?
Rating: -
In this unsparing yet respectful farewell to his parents, Christopher Buckley does not confuse love with sentimentality, dependence or absence of conflict-- this is one of the book's main strengths.
"Losing Mum and Pup" captures with frankness and humor the ambivalence children often feel toward their parents, and vice versa. Anyone who has cared for aging parents with strong personalities but failing minds and bodies will find much that is familiar. Not every detail is pleasant, but this book would not be true without facing the end with open eyes. In this life, things fade, friends and loved ones depart, and all symphonies remain unfinished.
In some quarters, much is made of the elder Buckleys' wealth-- modest by Hollywood or rock-star standards. However, far too little attention is given to their capacity for enduring friendship with people across political, cultural, national and generational lines. The subject of friendship was one of the most interesting, heartwarming, and underdeveloped aspects of the book-- the bright background against which the darker moments are seen in proper perspective. If Christopher Buckley writes just one more book about his parents-- and I hope he does-- this should be it.
Rating:  -
I wanted to like this book and might have if I hadn't read CRAZY FOR THE STORM first. STORM is also a story (true) about parental relationships. Read it. It's great. After I finished Mr. Buckley's book about his parents and his relationship with them it just seemed like another 'me' generation son basking in the reflected glory of his parents fame and wealth but disliking them as people. One wonders what Mr. Buckley's life would have been like without his parent's world and he had to make it on his own without the opportunities they provided his with.
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