Anne Heche Book:

		List Price: $39.98		Publisher: Hachette Audio Salesrank: 89808
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Editorial Review:
President of the United States Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees appointed to the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill A Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the guts to reject her -- Judge Pepper Cartwright, the star of the nation's most popular reality show, Courtroom Six.

Will Pepper, a straight-talking Texan, survive a confirmation battle in the Senate? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? And even if she can make it to the Supreme Court, how will she get along with her eight highly skeptical colleagues, including a floundering Chief Justice who, after legalizing gay marriage, learns that his wife has left him for another woman?

Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature. Supreme Courtship is another classic Christopher Buckley comedy about the Washington institutions most deserving of ridicule.

Description of Supreme Courtship:
In bestselling author Christopher Buckley's hilarious novel, the President of the United States, ticked off at the Senate for rejecting his nominees, decides to get even by nominating America's most popular TV judge to the Supreme Court.

President Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees onto the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill a Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the nerve to reject her--Judge Pepper Cartwright, star of the nation's most popular reality show. Will Pepper, a vivacious Texan, survive a Senate confirmation battle? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature. Supreme Courtship is another classic Christopher Buckley comedy about the Washington institutions most deserving of ridicule.

Somewhere in this brilliant, hilarious, impossible-to-put-down--to say nothing of moderately priced--new book of mine, the narrator notes that appointing a Supreme Court justice is pretty much the most consequential thing a president can do, short of declaring nuclear war; more to the point, that this fact is generally pointed out every four years by whoever is running second in the presidential election.

The Supreme Court is by any definition the most important branch of government. Who else has the power to say--without fear of being contradicted by someone higher up the food chain--"Congratulations, you just won the presidential election, even though the other guy got more votes!" Or, "We really feel awful about this, but you have to be lethally injected tonight at midnight."? If you're on the Supreme Court, you are the top of the food chain.

I've written satires about other Washington institutions. It never occurred to me to try one about the Supreme Court, for the reason that I never found it particularly funny. It was my editor, Jonathan Karp, who suggested it, and if the book turns out to be a stinkeroo and bombs, I am going to petition the Court to have him lethally injected.

At some point, while scratching my noggin and trying to come up with some way into a satire about the Marble Palace, I scribbled on a legal pad (how appropriate is that?): Judge Judy on the Court.

I called Karp and ran it past him. He laughed, which I always take as a good sign, since he doesn't laugh at 99 out of 100 of my genius ideas.

My Judge Judy is a sexy Texan named Pepper Cartwright. She was an actual judge before she became a TV hottie. How, you ask, did she get on the Court in the first place? Well, it all starts on page one where--did I mention how moderately priced the book is?

--Christopher Buckley

Supreme Courtship Reviews:
The Lion lies Down with the Lamb...and Has A Heckuva Good Time, Buckley
2008-10-12 - As a progressive loyalist, I always avoided Buckley's novels. But I'm also a Supreme Court junkie AND I love Judge Judy...so how could I resist Supreme Courtship, a novel based on the proposition that all judges are not created equal, but political motivations will odd bedfellows make.

Perdita "Pepper" Cartwright is a refreshing and popular television judge whom a mavericky President nominates for a spot on the SC when his two very qualified candidates are shot down by an egomaniacal senator who covets (and seeks) the job for himself.

This very humorous tale mocks the electorate and politicians, tv moguls and SC justice types; the Scalia character alone, named Silvio Santamaria (!), is worth the price of admission.

The characters are somewhat flimsily developed, sacrificed to serve the plot, the language and the humor, but then...so are P.G. Wodehouse's.

And now that Buckley has endorsed Obama, he has proven his intellectual and emotional bona fides sufficiently for me to recommend this book without reservation.

Supreme Satire
2008-10-10 - Without a doubt, this is the funniest book that I have read in years. I found at least one good laugh on every other page - hey Chris, put some funny stuff on the even numbered pages too.

Without being a spoiler, and revealing any more of the plot than has already been revealed, I would like to say that the characters are somewhat stereotypical, but then the book is satire.

There are quite a few plot surprises, however, I was able to predict one of the major plot elements.

The only difficult part was understanding some of the legalese, but then that too is satire.

Good storyteller and good narrator = GOOD listening
2008-10-10 - "Nothing raises the national temperature more," writes Christopher Buckley in Supreme Courtship, "than a vacancy sign hanging from the colonnaded front of the Supreme Court." Fictional president Donald Vanderdamp (whose approval ratings are in the "high twenties") finds out how difficult a job filling the spot can be. Two of his stellar candidates for the seat are taken out by the head-hunting Senate Judiciary Committee. In frustration, President Vanderdamp decides to give the committee a candidate they won't dare turn down--Judge Pepper Cartwright: young, sassy, and the star of television's highest rated show, Courtroom 6.

The havoc that ensues is political satire at its finest and driest. Buckley mercilessly skewers everything political from presidential campaigns to lobbyists to the overweening egos of Supreme Court justices. He even throws in an oh-so-thinly disguised parody of a certain senator from Connecticut that will make Republicans snort into their coffee.

Anne Heche's reading is the stuff that dreams are made of. Heche breathes such life into each character's individual accent and manner of speaking that it is easy to forget that only one person is speaking. All are brought to life vividly and believably. Buckley himself couldn't have hand-picked a better voice as the narrator: Heche manages to wring every ounce of dry humor from each satirical sentence.

Supreme Courtship is a breath of fresh air in a year bedeviled with financial crises and political wrangling.

Armchair Interviews says: Supreme Courtship is an outstandingly funny political satire made even more memorable by Anne Heche's stellar performance.

Quick read
2008-10-09 - Buckley's book is a quick read, but unfortunately appears to be a quick write. It has his usual great assortment of one-liners, but plot is a little too far fetched so the satire loses some of its punch.

Supreme Courtship
2008-10-08 - This is a very funny book with some serious insights into how the Supremes probably go about their mysterious business. Regardless of political leaning, anyone who values first class satire will relish this one.