It's difficult to achieve success as a writer, and when you're expected to follow someone like WFB in your achievements, it's easy to feel disappointment. Christopher never tries to conceal his feelings of inadequacy when comparing his number of published books to his father's. Likewise, he isn't dismissive of any of his mother and father's great qualities. He still looks up to his parents even as he reveals them at their frailer moments. His mother, as we learn, was charming and supportive, but she could be appallingly phony and amazingly naive at times--even though she could impress people with her electric wit.
I think that C. Buckley was well-suited to write this book because has a satirist's eye for quirks and inconsistencies. Great people like his father handle themselves splendidly while they continue to succeed, but they are poorly equipped to cope with their own demise. Perhaps WFB could have trudged on with his emphysema and his diabetes, but his mental decline must have been impossible to accept. No, WFB did not commit suicide, but it seems clear that he wished his life to end soon after the death of his wife.
Repeatedly, the book returns to religious differences between the staunch Catholic father and the agnostic son, but Christopher admits that he could have offered nothing like a secular consolation to either parent as their lives were ending.
I think the people who say the most vicious things about Christopher Buckley and this book are conservatives who continue to idolize his father so much that they despise seeing his liberal son describe him as less than a deity. They overlook the fact that he also willingly reveals his own shortcomings with equal candor and humor.Get more detail about Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir.
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