Here’s proof that Republicans can tell funny stories

A review of The White House Mess, by Christopher Buckley

@@@ (3 out of 5)

Christopher Buckley is a very funny man. I know this not just because I’ve read a few of his books, which generally “kept me in stitches” (whatever that means), but also because I actually spent much of an evening with him a few weeks ago. He’d come to Berkeley to do a “reading” from his newest book, They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?, and somehow I’d been invited to introduce him to the audience of about 150 people who were there to hear him. I managed to coax out two or maybe three laughs during my introduction and the questions I later posed. He elicited — oh, maybe 600. Because this was no “reading.” Like the consummate pro he is, he didn’t actually read from the book. He simply talked extemporaneously and, later, answered questions from the audience. The man is an accomplished stand-up comedian.

The White House Mess was written and published during the Reagan Administration, after (or perhaps during) Buckley’s turn as chief speechwriter for Vice President George H. W. Bush. The book masquerades as a White House memoir — a send-up of life inside the White House that focuses on the travails of the First Famly and on the high stakes feuds among their staff. The plot revolves around an old-fashioned Marxist-Leninist coup in Bermuda, the First Son’s missing hamster, a young First Lady who aches to become a Hollywood star again, a parody of a weak-kneed and wholly unsuited Democratic President, and a collection of snobs, misfits, and alcoholics who, somehow, manage to hold down jobs in the White House. Oh, and by the way: the title refers to the dining facilities, which are called the “mess” because they’re run by the Navy.

If the foregoing paragraph hints that The White House Mess is a parody of Democratic politics, consider that hint confirmed here. Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, Jr., of National Review fame, is indeed a Republican (even though he endorsed Barack Obama in 2008).They Eat Puppies, Buckley’s latest novel, was hysterically funny. (You can read my review of it here.) The White House Mess was his first. The fact that I did NOT find it hysterically funny but only occasionally so is no doubt the result of Buckley’s writing having matured as a writer from 1986, when Mess was published, to 2012, when Puppies saw the light of day. It’s also true, of course, that the latest book dealt with fresh material that reflected today’s reality, while the earliest one deals with a time that many readers could view only as ancient history. And, of course, I’m a Democrat.

Alligators, pythons, vampires, and gun-wielding drunks run amok in the Everglades

A review of Chomp, by Carl Hiaasen

@@@ (3 out of 5)

They’re maybe 14 years old. His name is Wahoo; he was named after the wrestler, not the fish. Hers is Tuna. Yes, the fish. So, they decide to call each other Lance and Lucille.

They live in the Everglades.

His father is an animal wrangler who supplies docile animals to TV survivalist shows that purport to show men wrestling with alligators or snakes. Hers is a drunken bum who drove her mother away to Chicago and now beats her instead of her mother.

They spend a lot of time together, but they are NOT boyfriend and girlfriend.

Now, are you getting the impression that this cockamamie story is a book for young readers?

Welcome to the world of Carl Hiaasen, a long-time columnist for the Miami Herald who has written some of the funniest novels ever on environmental themes. His adult books — there are 16 of them — are all set in Florida. As Wikipedia notes, “Hiaasen’s Florida is a hive of greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians, dumb blondes, apathetic retirees, intellectually challenged tourists, hard-luck redneck cooters, and militant ecoteurs.” That “militant ecoteur,” by the way, is a deranged ex-Governor who walked out of the capital one day long ago and went feral. He now holes up in the Everglades, eating what he can scavenge or kill and ever vigilant to threats to its flora and fauna.

Chomp is one of Hiaasen’s four novels for young adults. Like his grown-up books, Chomp is chiefly a satire, with the environment as the beneficiary. Here, the brunt of Hiaasen’s wit is Derek Badger (“NOT Beaver”), the star of a wildly popular TV show featuring him in constant danger in the wilderness from man-eating beasts. However, as Wahoo and Tuna soon learn once Badger hires Wahoo’s father for a show in the Everglades, Badger is nothing of the sort, since every encounter on his show is carefully scripted and contrived, with little or no danger to the star. The REAL danger comes from Tuna’s gun-wielding father.

As a long-time fan of Hiaasen’s adult novels, I unknowingly picked up Chomp expecting more of the same. From the outset, though, the book seemed a little simple-minded, and the humor even broader and more obvious than I’d expected. I wasn’t aware that I failed to qualify as an intended reader. Still, the book was amusing, the characters rooted in a true if cockeyed version of reality, and the plot was rich. No reader should be surprised to learn that alligators, pythons, would-be vampires, and gun-wielding drunks turn up in this story, not to mention a hedonistic Hollywood producer.

Unfortunately, the feral ex-Governor is nowhere to be found in Chomp. I missed him.