Book Review: Wet Work, by Christopher Buckley (1991)

 

The paperback cover of Wet Work, by Christopher Buckley, 1991.

Christopher Buckley’s third book was the 1991 novel Wet Work. Buckley’s first book was the 1982 non-fiction book Steaming to Bamboola, the chronicle of an Atlantic crossing by a cargo ship, and his second was the 1986 political satire The White House Mess, so it was anyone’s guess what form and subject matter a third Buckley book would cover. I’m not sure that anyone could have predicted Wet Work, the tale of a septuagenarian billionaire who takes murderous revenge on drug dealers after his granddaughter fatally overdoses.

Wet Work is an odd mixture, as it combines dark humor with the relentless action of a thriller. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it funny enough or thrilling enough to be an effective combination.

The main character of the novel is Charley Becker, a billionaire who suddenly turns into a vigilante. (Had there been a movie of Wet Work, Charles Bronson could have played this role.) Part of my problem with Wet Work was the premise. I felt empathy for Charley’s grief over losing his granddaughter, but I wasn’t fully on board with his plan for murderous revenge. It’s a bit difficult to relate to a billionaire who is bent on homicidal revenge at all costs. I wasn’t really rooting for anyone in the novel—the most sympathetic character was probably Frank Diatri, an FBI agent who is trying to unravel the mystery of who’s been killing all these drug dealers.

There are portions of Wet Work that are great fun, as when the climactic chase scene cleverly keeps switching points of view between the drug lord and Charley. There’s also a dollop of art history that adds a tasty flavor to the novel. Buckley aficionados should take special note when one of the characters says, “Industry is the enemy of melancholy.” Charley asks, “Is that Shakespeare?” Nope, it’s one of the favorite sayings of William F. Buckley.

Christopher Buckley had a difficult time writing Wet Work. In an email to me, he wrote “I worked harder on that damn book than on any other. 33 months, total.” Wet Work received some positive reviews upon its release, and one fan of the book was Buckley’s good friend Christopher Hitchens. Wet Work is a quirky book, and certainly an outlier in Buckley’s bibliography, but it’s not without its merits. 

Book Review: But Enough About You, by Christopher Buckley (2014)

Cover of But Enough About You, by Christopher Buckley, 2014.

Christopher Buckley

Christopher Buckley’s most recent book is But Enough About You, a collection of essays he has written for various publications over the last 15 years. Buckley is one of my favorite writers, and I devoured But Enough About You with delight. The pieces collected in But Enough About You are a true grab-bag, running the gamut from humorous to serious. However, the essays collected here work well together, even though they span a decade and a half. As a writer, Buckley is consistently funny, witty, and smart. His prose entertains and informs, as he sprinkles witty bon mots throughout. 

But Enough About You also includes more serious pieces, and for me these were some of the highlights of the book. Buckley’s essay about visiting Auschwitz with his father was quite moving, as was his tribute to his late friend Christopher Hitchens. There is an excellent essay on Buckley’s relationship with President George H.W. Bush. Buckley was a speechwriter for then-Vice President Bush from 1981 until 1983, and his admiration for Bush is clear. Another fascinating personal essay was “Dear Joe,” about Buckley’s correspondence and friendship with Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22. My only criticism of “Dear Joe” is that while Heller’s letters to Buckley are quoted, Buckley’s letters to Heller are not. Buckley may have thought that his letters would not be of interest, but he sells himself short, as his authorial gifts are many. 

I was particularly fascinated by Buckley’s 2012 essay on the death of Gore Vidal. Here a little historical backstory is required. Back in 1968, Vidal and William F. Buckley, leading light of the conservative movement and Christopher’s father, squared off in a series of televised debates during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During one debate, Buckley and Vidal got into a rather heated exchange, with Vidal calling Buckley a “crypto-Nazi,” and Buckley responding in kind by calling Vidal a “queer.” The following year, both men wrote articles for Esquire magazine about the event. Vidal’s article had some rather nasty things to say about Buckley, who ended up suing Vidal and Esquire for libel. Buckley won the case, and with it the eternal enmity of Gore Vidal. While Buckley refrained from criticizing Vidal in print, Vidal never missed a chance to lay into Buckley.  In keeping with his cranky nature, Vidal had only nasty things to say upon Buckley’s death in 2008. Adding insult to injury, as was his wont, Vidal also insulted Christopher Buckley, calling him “creepy” and “brain dead.” Christopher Buckley has every right to hate Gore Vidal and say nasty things about him when he died in 2012. But Buckley doesn’t, and instead crafted an intelligent essay that acknowledged both Vidal’s strengths as a writer and his faults as a human being. As a fan of both William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal, I can safely say that while politically I agree much more with Vidal, William F. Buckley was twice the man Gore Vidal was. 

Ironically, But Enough About You doesn’t include what might be Christopher Buckley’s most famous, or notorious, short essay, “Sorry Dad, I’m Voting for Obama,” which was published on The Daily Beast website in October, 2008. Buckley hated the title of the piece, and he demanded that the editors change it. (They didn’t.) In the essay, Buckley explained the reasons why he was voting for Barack Obama rather than John McCain in the 2008 election. Buckley’s reasons were quite rational, as he wrote, “Obama has in him…the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.” So as to not unduly antagonize the right wing, Buckley purposely did not publish the piece in the pages of National Review, the magazine his father started, and for whom he had recently begun writing a column. Nevertheless, the piece caused the right wing to virulently turn against Buckley, and it forced him to resign from National Review. The kerfuffle over Buckley’s piece is a good example of how the Republican party has purged itself of any dissenting voices. In the essay Buckley quotes his father as saying, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, now it’s the Tea Party and their kooks separating the Right from anyone with half a brain. 

If you’re a fan of Christopher Buckley’s satirical novels, you will surely enjoy But Enough About You, and the humor of essays like “The Origin and Development of the Lobster Bib-Volume II: Rome to the Present Era,” and “How to Write Witty E-Mail (Hint: Pretend They’re Telegrams),” a 1998 essay that was the first piece I ever read by Christopher Buckley.

The Decline and Fall of Gore Vidal

Christopher Hitchens had a good little article in the February issue of Vanity Fair, "Vidal Loco," about how the quality of Gore Vidal's writing and public statements has fallen off since 9/11. It's an interesting article, and I have to agree with Hitchens. I have been a fan of Vidal's writing since high school, so it pains me to admit this. I think Vidal's best essays are nothing short of brilliant, and his best novels are witty and sharp. He is, as Hitchens says, the 20th century's Oscar Wilde.

I would actually say that Vidal starting losing the plot slightly before 9/11, when he starting corresponding with Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. McVeigh wrote to Vidal from jail, sensing that he had found someone who shared some of his anti-government views. Now, most people would have said, "I don't want to have anything to do with this nutjob." But not Vidal. For whatever reason, his ego was stroked, and he wrote back, starting a correspondence between the two men. Vidal has never condemned McVeigh's actions. There's a difference between being a patriot and being a terrorist, but Vidal chose not to see it.

In a crotchety interview with Johann Hari of the London Independent, Vidal rants and raves about many things, but one thing he pointedly does not do is place any judgement on McVeigh's murderous actions. Vidal says that McVeigh was "too sane for his place and time." He goes on to call McVeigh "a noble boy." Hari tries to prod Vidal, asking if McVeigh showed a callous disregard for human life. Vidal's response, "So did Patton! So did Eisenhower! Everybody's rather careless about it once you start getting involved in wars." But McVeigh's act was committed in peacetime, against his fellow American citizens. Even if it were committed in wartime, it would be a war crime. Hari then asks Vidal if there were more people like McVeigh, would that be a good thing? "It strikes me as a perfect nightmare. Of course I don't want more people like McVeigh." Hari then writes: "I don't understand. I try again and again to tug him back and get him to say whether this means he thinks McVeigh was wrong to plant the bomb. He won't. Finally, he jeers: 'You are trying my patience.'" How sad that this great thinker is unable to see a monstrous act for what it truly was.

Vidal has an inability to say anything nice about anyone else, which has grown worse in the last few years. His ego has consumed him. In talking about his fellow writers, he used to be quite funny. In the past, Vidal would have had a sharp comeback or a witty bon mot, but now he is simply bitter and angry. When asked about John Updike, whom Vidal never cared for, he says contemptuously, "Updike was nothing." Really, Gore? Or are you just jealous of his 2 Pulitzer Prizes? Vidal's worst instincts have unfortunately taken over, and he seems to be content to simply be a parody of himself as an angry old man. He couldn't even find much of anything nice to say about his friend and rival Norman Mailer. "Mailer was a flawed publicist, but at least there were signs every now and then of a working brain." That's about as close to a compliment as Vidal gets these days. As Hitchens writes, "One sadly notices...the utter want of any grace or generosity, as well as the absence of any wit or profundity." Well said.

In Vidal's interview with the Independent, Vidal says that China will surpass the US as the world's great power, and then China will "have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport." This is a familiar sentiment coming from Gore. Whereas now it's the Chinese who are out to own us, back in the 80's and 90's, it was the Japanese who we would soon be serving, he said. I remember reading those essays in the late 90's, after Japan's economy had collapsed, and thinking, "Well, that didn't quite happen Gore."

Vidal seems to have simply run out of gas. He hasn't published a novel since 2000's "The Golden Age," and his essays just re-tread the same old subjects. His 2006 memoir, "Point to Point Navigation," reads as just a re-tread of his 1995 memoir, "Palimpsest," which was a truly great book. It's difficult to criticize someone who has had an immensely prolific and varied career for slumping after the age of 75, but it is a sad way for Gore to exit. Nothing seems to interest him any more, and he has run out of things to hate. I suppose after 24 novels, more than 200 essays, 6 plays, and 46 books overall, it's expected that Vidal's energy would eventually run out. But no matter what he does in his old age, the post-2001 Vidal will not be the one I remember. I'll remember the Vidal who rubbed shoulders with the Kennedys, who was a great friend of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward's, who made the Roman empire come alive in "Julian," who created a bizarre and funny world of his own in "Duluth," who wrote with skill about a disgraced Founding Father in "Burr," and who made me laugh and question the world in his essays.