'Supreme Courtship' Seats Another Woman Among the Nine
Lawyers looking for some holiday reading this weekend might want to consider Christopher Buckley’s latest comic political novel, Supreme Courtship.
The book, which was vetted by three law professors, revolves around the president’s nomination of a new justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is Perdita “Pepper” Cartwright, a Texas babe who works as a judge on a popular television reality show, reports the New York Law Journal, in an article reprinted by New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
The stage is set at the novel’s outset:
“Supreme Court Associate Justice J. Mortimer Brinnan’s deteriorating mental condition had been the subject of talk for some months now, but when he showed up for oral argument with his ears wrapped in aluminum foil, the consensus was that the time had finally come for him to retire. Thank God, his fellow justices agreed—unanimously, for once—cameras weren’t allowed in the court,” Buckley writes.
Nominated in something of an act of spite, by a president who is tired of seeing his selections get a thumbs-down in the Senate, Cartwright is a catalyst for a number of unlikely developments, including her own confirmation.
The novel has received mixed reviews. Janet Maslin says in a New York Times article that it isn’t all that funny. But a fellow novelist reviewing Buckley’s book for the Washington Post disagrees.
While “you don’t read a Buckley novel for the depth of character development,” writes Lisa Zeidner, the book’s wacky plot is hilariously close to real life.
