No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley

I am reposting this 2010 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.
When you read as much as I do every once in a while you need some palate cleansing. I am a huge fan of pickled ginger, which is always served with sushi and wasabi. Pickled ginger has great taste, but when you finish you do not have an aftertaste, you just have a mildly pleasant feeling in your mouth. The two Christopher Buckley novels I have read, No Way to Tread a First Lady and Supreme Court, are the pickled ginger for my mind.

I enjoy politics. I like watching the weekend political talk shows, although I rarely have time. I often listen to Shields and Brooks podcast from PBS news and the Slate Political Gabfest podcast. My favorite NPR show is Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, a radio equivalent of Christopher Buckley’s political satire. So when I had it up to here with memoirs and other books telling me how wonderful the authors were doing at processing what God has been telling them, I picked up some emergency Christopher Buckley. I am saving the rest of his novels for future need.

No Way to Treat A First Lady is a satirical novel about trying the first lady for killing her husband (the President). She found him, yet again having an affair. This time the the dalliance was in the Lincoln Bedroom, while she was asleep down the hall. The next morning he is discovered dead in bed and the First Lady is suspected and tried for Presidential Assassination. Buckley does a fabulous job making a trial both boringly realistic and exciting to read about.

I listen to a lot of audiobook because a fair part of my job is doing mindless data entry. I finished this book in three days. Grover Gardner was the narrator. I got a kick out of the fact that he was narrating three different audiobooks that I am concurrently listening to. This one, Tell it Slant by Eugene Peterson and Desiring God by John Piper. As a warning to more delicate listeners/readers, Christopher Buckley can use some strong language and quite frequently references sex in this book, although not overly crudely. It is quite funny and very enjoyable.

No Way to Treat a First Lady Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook