Some years ago, when they still lived in Malibu, the late John Gregory Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion, entertained a prominent magazine journalist and author at dinner. It was December and, afterward, they invited their guest to accompany them to their daughter's grammar school Christmas pageant.
This being Malibu, many of the youngsters on stage were the children of leading singers and film stars, which must have lent more than the usual piquancy to their amateur performances. At a certain point, Dunne noticed his guest's hand stealing down into her oversized purse and withdrawing a notebook. As he recalled it, his own hand shot over to grasp the visiting writer's wrist. "My daughter," he whispered, "is not material."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, June 02, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
Christopher Buckley: A May 6 review of Christopher Buckley's memoir "Losing Mum and Pup" in the Calendar section included a statement that Buckley has an 8-year-old son whom he has refused ever to see that should have been attributed to court papers filed by the son's mother in a child support dispute.
Christopher Buckley, former vice presidential speech writer and author of a notable series of topical comic novels, suffered the loss of his celebrated parents -- the great conservative thinker and writer William F. Buckley and socialite Patricia Taylor Buckley -- and reached an opposite conclusion in "Losing Mum and Pup": "I'm a writer, and when the universe hands you material like this, not writing about it amounts either to waste or a conscious evasion."
Not necessarily -- particularly when a writer attempts and fails the difficult task of coaxing irony and grief into coexistence. This is a son who clearly cared about his rather distant, extraordinarily difficult parents, though the reader never quite discovers why -- other than the fact that his mother (referred to as "Fortress Mum") was beautiful and dressed extremely well and his father wrote at blazing speed and taught him to navigate a sailboat by the stars. We also discover that Mum was a hostess who could turn vicious in her cups and regale the company with titanically self-aggrandizing lies. Pup, "the Lion of the right," seems somehow cowed and ineffectual in her presence and is bereft without her care, despite a large, doting household staff. Toward his author son, he is, by turns, distantly affectionate and hyper-competitive, mostly the latter. A good portion of the memoir is given over to a catalog of his final decline's infirmities, including prostate problems that lead him to urinate out the open doors of moving cars and limos.
