National Book Festival: 'Thank You for Smoking'

Journalist, satirist and critic Christopher Buckley likes to pull on the gloves and go after the heavyweights. His line of incisive novels addresses controversial issues through wry and sly writing.

Buckley has worked in the George H. W. Bush administration and as the managing editor of Esquire and currently works as an editor for Forbes FYI along with his work as an author. His past works include "God Is My Broker," "Little Green Men," "The White House Mess," and, most recently, "Florence of Arabia." Recently, "Thank You for Smoking," which takes on the world of big tobacco, was turned into a motion picture starring Aaron Eckhart.

Christopher Buckley will be online Wednesday, Sept. 27, at noon ET to field questions and comments about his books and participation in the National Book Festival .

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Christopher Buckley: Hello. Christopher Buckley here, doing my first-ever chat room. I'm not very adept at the cyber stuff so bear with me. I'll try not to erase the entire Washington Post data base.

Here goes nothing....

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Winston-Salem, NC: Okay ignore the address, no irony intended.

Not to knock Steve Martin or this year's winner Neil Simon, but how do we get Calvin Trillin the Mark Twain award. (I'd suggest you, but figure you'll be able to get it down the road.) Enough of these showbiz types (though Martin's essays have been great). Isn't it time for someone truly in the Twain tradition to be honored?

Love your work, though I don't think you're particularly popular here in the town where the paper stopped running Doonesbury when he went on an anti-cigareet company jag.

Christopher Buckley: Calvin Trillin is one of the reasons I wanted to grow up and write humor. (I never grew up but I do, I guess, write what for want of a better term would be called "Humor.")

An excellent idea. I'll make it my Cause Militant.

BTW, I hope you saw his not-at-all-funny but utterly moving tribute to his wife, Alice, who died much too soon on Sept 12, 2001.

Give my regards to all my fans in Winston-Salem...and remember that...

Winston tastes good....like a ....cigarette should!

Chris

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Sheridan School Class of '86: Mr. Buckley,

Just wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed all of your books. Your wry humor often has me laughing out loud, earning me strange looks from the other patrons in Starbucks, but I'm used to it. I don't really have a question -- just wanted to say hi.

Christopher Buckley: Well good to hear from you. Both my children attended Sheridan and we have fond memories.

Keep up the chuckling at Starbucks. You're my best advertisement.

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New York, NY: Mr. Buckley:

First off, I thought your magazine changed its name to ForbesLife, or am I reading the front cover of another magazine?

More importantly, when I read "Thank You for Smoking" I could not help but remember a National Review cover story from years ago about the enjoyment and sad politicization of 'Pleasure.' The pleasures of drinking and smoking (cigars) and red meat have not fallen victim to mere healthier habits, rather, it is condemed as something sinister. The new black hat.

Question: Why can't the good guy in a novel or motion picture love a great martini, perhaps two or three, and still be considered a good guy? Enjoying a good cigar or cocktail (even on a daily basis)is not a negative character trait!

Is the art of enjoying manly, pleasurable things outside the bedroom lost? I think you wrote a piece recently on martini shakers; do you have any plans to allow the good guy in your next book enjoy "bad things"

Christopher Buckley: Interesting -- and good -- questions.

James Bond was probably the last hero to smoke and drink (Martinis, "medium vodka dry, shaken not stirred"). Of course he also managed to keep himself in literally fighting trim.

I've just finished a new novel (Boomsday, comes out in April) and now that you mention it no one smokes or drinks. When I first started writing fiction I had almost all my characters smoke, for the reason that it allowed you to insert the line, "She lit and cigarette, exhaled, and said, 'So, what do you want to do tonight, big boy?'" But over the last 20 years my characters seem to have given up smoking. And they drink less. A shame.

BTW, I think our next president needs to drink, if this one is any indication of the effects of teetotalling.

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in MD now: It's great that you are doing this discussion. You were my commencement speaker at Langley H.S. ten years ago - and you were right, I don't remember much of your speech, though you were by far the most entertaining speaker I've had. I would like to read another of your books (read Thank You for Smoking already) and wanted to know which one you'd recommend.

Christopher Buckley: Hi there.

What! You don't remember every word of my speech??? Shame!

I had a lovely time that day and was tickled to have been asked. You were a good audience.

Well, let's see--why don't you go to Olssen's Book Store and BUY THEM ALL!

Flip answer, I know. My last was a novel called Florence of Arabia, and as a matter of fact it starts in--LANGLEY. So why not that?

Cheers, give my regards to the class of whatever year it was.

Chris

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Montclair, Va: I remember reading Thank You for Smoking, recommending to everyone I worked with at Olsson's and to any customers who came in with just the vaguest idea of needing something to read. On rereading, however, the biting satire was replaced in my relationship to the book by just sadness in seeing that none of it was ficiton and that even the most over-the-top scenarios were followed in reality by even more egregious examples playing out on the news pages (imagine then what isn't being reported). Have you ever had a similar sense that whatever outrageous caricature you draw that it will not be outrageous enough? Oh, to be innocent again.

Christopher Buckley: Hello Montclair,

I've often thought that the hardest part of writing satire in America today is competing with the front page of the day's newspaper. But it's a living and I'm doing my best.

Thanks for your work at Olssen's, a wonderful store and an epicenter of the biz. I'm so sorry the one on Wisconsin Avenue was replaced by yet another shoe-store.

You hang in there.

Chris

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Mt. Lebanon Pa: Off topic.

I'm looking at a picture of your Dad in Dan Wakefield's book: "New York in the 50s". A wonderful read - makes me a little sad that I didn't live those exhilarating times in that extraordinary city.

(sorry, I don't like periods inside exclamation marks that aren't part of the quote or title)

The book shows him in white shirt and tie neatly typing. The caption: "William F. Buckley, Jr., provided youth, eloquence, charm, and a new magazine, 'The National Review', to the conservative cause."

Do you ever ask him how he feels about the spit wadders and back benchers who have taken over his inspired creation and turned it into a sophomoric Animal House frat magazine.

I would guess he must be mortified. And angry.

"Good words to you."

(John Ciardi's radio sign-off)

Thanks much. HLB

Christopher Buckley: Dear Mt. Lebanon Pa,

Yes, those were the days. I think sometimes there's a danger in wishing that the good old days could be relived. The answer is: we live in different times. I do despair of what some have made conservatism into. If you're interested, check out a piece I have in the current Washington Monthly, a lament on the order of What Have They Done to My Party?

Warm regards,

Chris

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Missoula, Mont: Mr. Buckley -- an acquaintence of mine says that you were in the first coed class at a certain private college in Connecticut, an alma mater of our current president. She says you weren't exactly wild about going to college with women. True? Ever thought of making this book fodder?

Christopher Buckley: Hello, Missoula,

Negative! I had been locked up the previous four years at an all-boys boarding school in Rhode Island run by monks. I was DYING to go to a coed school. But Yale in 1971 was barely co-ed: the women-to-men ratio was an appalling 7-1, which did not make for the most relaxed atmosphere, as you can imagine.

Give my regards to the Big Sky.

Cheers.

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Washington DC: What's your motivation aside from the sole motivation of each particular work? I mean, we're only human and nobody is really all that different from anyone else--what keeps you thinking you can make a difference? What makes you think the difference you'll make means anything?

Christopher Buckley: I'm not honestly sure I think I make a difference. When I compare what I do to almost anyone else: teacher, dentist, surgeon, cop, even the guy from the power company or the cable company, I acutely sense my place in the universe, and it ain't a big one.

The best moments are when someone writes and says something like, "I read your book to my father in the hospital while he was dying and it made him laugh." Indeed, those are very good moments.

Cheers.

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Washington DC: What requirements should every writer follow? Is it cliche to be a writer?

Christopher Buckley: No, I don't think it's a cliche at all to be a writer. I think it's a fine calling and there's nothing I'd rather be doing.

Really the one requirement every writer should follow is--WRITE. It sounds easy, but trust me, it ain't.

Cheers.

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Boston, Mass: Christopher, It must be very difficult to balance a full-time job, family life and fiction writing? When do you find time to write?

Keith

Christopher Buckley: Hi Keith,

I'm sometimes asked why I write. And I usually answer, "The monthly mortgage." A glib answer, perhaps, but it's pretty good inspiration when you come right down to it.

A writer does need a certain...cone of silence, as Maxwell Smart used to call it. I write most of my books (12 to date) on the Acela train between DC and New York. The key is sitting in the Quiet Car, where they don't let people yak on cell phones.

Cheers.

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Leesburg, Va: Christopher: So many of the authors on the schedule for National Book Festival are lefties. Do you think they will be able to contain themselves Saturday given such an opportunity (big crowds, C-SPAN) to attack Bush, the war, or otherwise stray from books to predictable lefty misbehavior?

Christopher Buckley: Interesting question. I think the sponsors of the festival would be embarrassed if writers tried to use it as a (giant) soapbox for their views, right, center or left. I certainly have no plans to make any political statement. Other than that I am running for President.

See you there. Please vote for me.

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Falls Church, Va.: I'm sorry, but I'm constantly confusing you with Christopher Hitchens. To help me remember, would you care to set forth some of the differences between you two?

Christopher Buckley: Christopher and I are constantly being confused. I am the extremely good looking one. He is a lovely fellow, but not nearly as handsome.

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Washington DC: you wrote a piece in the Post around 1982, whenever you were 28, about traveling in Europe at an age when you should be settling down and staying at the Ambassador's residence in Paris, terrorizing the place. Good to know the apple did not fall far from the tree, knowing your dad, like your pieces.

Christopher Buckley: Ah, the Moocher's Odyssey. God the Post got into a lot of trouble from those. People HATED them! But it was a grand trip, with my best buddy on earth John Tierney, now an august New York Times (sorry!) Op-Ed columnist. Glad to hear from you. Cheers.

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Roseland NJ: Which would you rather be known as: a novelist, or a satirist?

Christopher Buckley: "Satirist" sounds vaguely illegal. "Novelist" sounds far too presumptuous, as in "Dickens and Flaubert and I are, of course, novelists...." "Writer" will do. Even "Hack writer." cheers.

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Arlington, Va: In your recent Washington Monthly article, you wrote that, "It's time for a time-out. Time to hand over this sorry enchilada to Hillary and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Charlie Rangel and Harry Reid, who has the gift of being able to induce sleep in 30 seconds." Have you realized the potential damage done to the national sense of humor from such a development?

Christopher Buckley: Yes, I weighed that carefull before typing those words. but I'm ready. As Mr. Bush would say, "Bring it on." Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Tysons Corner, Va: I loved "Florence of Arabia," which I read in excerpt form, through installments in The Atlantic. But my efforts to revisit the novel, in audio form, didn't take.

Do you have favorite audio versions of your books? Any ones to avoid?

Christopher Buckley: To be honest, I've never listened to any of my books on tape, even the one I recorded (Washington Schlepped Here). It's such a different energy. Try reading the novel, though. It's not half-bad.

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Florence, Arabia: Read your book while living in the Middle East. Nearly died laughing - especially being young, single, female.

Seriously though, do you find that satirical literature is not understood or well appreciated in other parts of the world? Who would you consider your -counterparts- internationally?

Thanks.

Christopher Buckley: Funny you should ask. The book (Florence) is being published in Germany, Denmark, and Russia. France--where almost all my books have been published--declined to publish Florence "because of the legal issues." My stuff has been published in 16 languages so far, including Romanian and Indonesia. God only knows how my jokes translate there. Cheers.

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Curious: What was it like working in the Bush administration? I know, it's a vague question. Three things to come to mind, please?

Christopher Buckley: I worked for George HW Bush when he was VP, and a loveliest, kinder, more decent guy doesn't walk the earth. And I loved Ronald Reagan. How long ago it all seems.

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Tulsa, Okla: What would tell a struggling writer who hates everything he puts down on paper? How do you stay positive on new work? How do you keep yourself going, and staying away from the delete button? Thanks.

Christopher Buckley: Well, that IS a tough one. If you really hate everything you put down on paper, it's at least a sign that you're discriminating. My advice to almost anyone who asks me about becoming a writer is -- and I don't mean this at all in jest -- "Don't quit your day job." I haven't. I work, very happily, at Forbes Magazine.

That said, the delete button is a very fine instrument, and quite possibly the best button on the whole darn keyboard. Hang in there.

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Los Angeles, Calif: "The monthly mortgage". Well, such an obligation to write is a privilege of sorts, and good for you. I'm putting out a POD novel called "The Sidewalk Smokers Club." Last year when we were shopping it around, we pitched it as "Thank You For Smoking" meets "Crash" (which had just won the Oscar). Not that it helped, but it was good to have a sterling example of the old-time satire that poked fun at both sides of the political spectrum to hold up as an example. This is your triumph with that work, going against BOTH currents in an era of sectarian complicity that stretches even to the secular sphere. We're glad you cracked Hollywood and got a little help with the mortgage, too.

best,

Stephen S

Christopher Buckley: Dear Stephen,

Good luck with the POD novel (oh, brave new world that hath such things in it....) It took a while to crack old Hollywood...12 years from book to movie. Mel Gibson, recently arrested for driving while anti-semitic--owned it for ten years but got bogged down in loser projects like...what were their names?....Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ.

Cheers.

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Washington, D.C.: In Washington Schlepped Here, I believe you said the Calder sculpture in the National Gallery would cure whatever ails you. Any stronger medicine for a young man inspired by the Reagan years to come to Washington but finding himself in a different era?

Christopher Buckley: My advice to you, young man, would be the same advise Bluto Blutarsky of Animal House gave to Flouder: "Start drinking!" Cheers and welcome to town.

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Arlington, Va.: I have the same problem as the Falls Church commenter, except I'm always confusing you with Christopher Walken. Are you the one who danced in the Moby video?

Christopher Buckley: Actually, I'm even better looking than Christopher Walken, though for some reason People Magazine and the others refuse to acknowledge this simple fact. Just my cross to bear, I guess.

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Lincoln Park, Washington DC: Will Rick Renard be making a return appearance anytime soon, in stories or a novel of his own. The Atlantic stories revolving around him are absolute classics!

Christopher Buckley: Rick is one of my favorite guys. So glad you enjoyed his appearances in the Atlantic. I'll give him a call and see if he's up for another adventure. Cheers.

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Washington, DC: what is boomsday about?

Christopher Buckley: In a nutshell: a 29 year old female DC blogger becomes incensed that the Boomer Generation (mine, alas) is making her gen pay for their retirement through Social Security and Medicare, etc, so she proposes that the US govt ought to offer Boomers incentives to kill themselves at age 65. A Swiftian "Modest Proposal" as it were. An ambitious senator gloms on to the idea and it becomes Topic A on the national agenda. Cheers.

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Oklahoma City, Okla: Dear Chris,

I've read that your father, who wrote prolifically while in Switzerland, partitioned his day so meticulously as to allot only a short, prescribed period for skiing and the rest to writing. Do you budget your time so precisely?

Steve B

Christopher Buckley: My old dad, bless his heart, was/is the most disciplined human being on the planet. He wrote most of his (52!) books in six weeks in Switzerland, working on them between 4 and 7 in the evening. I could no more accomplish that than I could launch myself to the moon. But I'm somewhat disciplined. When I write, to quote Hemingway, "I am like a blind pig." Flattering, huh?

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St Petersburg, Fla: Hi Chris,

Big fan of all your books. Especially enjoyed "Washington Schlepped Here". What books do read to get a laugh?

I did see your article on the GOP. As someone who was raised in a Republican family and now cannot stand either party, I also feel the loss of true statesmanship and bipartisan work that was seen in the 50's and early 60's. I can remember when there was a "liberal" wing of the GOP and the good that came out of their efforts. What would you like to see for the future of both parties or is it truly time (or even possible) for a genuine third party?

Christopher Buckley: Hi St. Petersburg,

I feel your pain, as someone said. The history of third parties is generally depressing. The reason I wrote that I hope we Republicans take a shellacking in the coming elections is I think it is time for some MAJOR soul-search and resetting of circuit breakers. Cheers.

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Munich, Germany: I just read the online description of Florence; it sounds like a great yarn.

I don't want you to give anything away, but is there a connection between peace in the Middle-East and subduing the dangerous camel?

Christopher Buckley: The camel part in the book is actually my favorite. So the answer is YES, ABSOLUTELY! Salaam.

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Washington DC: How do you decide what you're going to work on?

Christopher Buckley: I bash my head repeatedly against the wall until something good oozes out.

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Washington DC: Kurt Vonnegut says fiction writing is dead...would you agree? Obviously you've succeeded, but you're one in a million with the market being so small.

Christopher Buckley: Oh God, I HOPE he's wrong. I heard him interviewed on lTV once talking about what it was like to have a short story published in the Saturday Evening Post back in the 1940s. He said it was like being on The Today Show, 60 Minutes and Oprah simultaneously. "Everyone in America was talking about your short story the next day." Those days are long gone.

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Washington, DC: Do you watch CSPAN?

Christopher Buckley: Occasionally. It's a tremendous invention. Thank you, Brian Lamb.

PS I liked it when they turned the cameras around and showed that there was no one in the House chamber when the speaker was ranting....

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Christopher Buckley: Happy to have done this. Thank you all for chatting with me in cyber space.

I'm shrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinkingggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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