Christopher Taylor Buckley (born September 28, 1952) is an American author and political satirist. He also served as chief speechwriter to Vice President George H. W. Bush. He is known for writing God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, and The Judge Hunter.
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Early life and education
Buckley is the only child of writer and Firing Line host William F. Buckley Jr. and Patricia Buckley. After receiving a classical education at Portsmouth Abbey School, Buckley worked his way around the world as a deckhand on a Norwegian tramp freighter. He graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1976.
Career
He joined the staff of Esquire magazine in 1976 and seven months later was promoted at age 24 to managing editor. In 1980 he returned to sea aboard an American ship and made eight mid-winter transatlantic crossings between U.S. Gulf ports and North Sea ports in England and Germany. The experience was the basis for his first bestselling non-fiction book, Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter, published in 1982.