Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir of William and Patricia Buckley.

A new book written by Christopher Buckley about his mother and father Patricia and William Buckley and titled: Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir of his parents is being released. The New York Times has a nine part synopsis of the book which I have read. I liked William Buckleys fiction books about spies, and I am pleasantly surprised from reading about him that he was a very nice guy and good company if you were so honored to be his friend.

The nine parts from the NYT is good reading and what will strike you as it did me is that family relationships are the same with the haves as with the rest of us, perhaps the arguments are carried out more properly linguistically, but it all comes out the same. Arguments, refusals to talk as a penalty, sons thinking that their parents are sometimes intolerable, cruelties foistered upon each other and forgivenesses given.

All in all they are, or were a very civilized, loving family with moments of common discourse between them. I thought I liked Bill Buckley before this personal account and nothing in this account changes my feelings. It has illustrated that families must suffer through bad manners over a lifetime living together and sometimes it isn't always pretty.

It covers the heartbreak of failing health and finally death and the enormous grief that cannot be avoided.

Christopher Buckley is a good writer and it seems his father was proud of him, which was important to him, as it would be to most of us. I will look for the book in my library.