SOURCE: Heilbrunn, Jacob. “She Stoops to Conquer.” Los Angeles Times (13 October 2002): R5.

In the following review, Heilbrunn offers a positive assessment of No Way to Treat a First Lady, calling the novel a “heroic and pioneering effort.”

Christopher Buckley is, to borrow Major Bagstock's self-assessment in Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son, a devilishly intelligent fellow. In his bestseller Thank You for Smoking, Buckley mocked the pieties of political correctness. Now, in his novel No Way to Treat a First Lady, Buckley has surpassed himself. He has become a presidential historian. The result isn't humorous; it's hilarious.

The Clinton presidency might seem beyond parody. But Buckley offers something even wackier: a parallel universe in which Hillary Rodham Clinton is fondly remembered as a meek tea-serving first lady. It is First Lady Elizabeth Tyler MacMann who is loathed for her grasping ambition by a public only too ready to believe...