Christopher Buckley is the spawn of an endangered species: the principled, polysyllabic right-winger. His famous father, William F. Buckley Jr., was a crusading and sesquipedalian conservative thinker, founding the National Review and hosting more than 1,400 episodes of the public-affairs series Firing Line. Christopher isnt as politically polarizing as his father; in fact, he made plenty of enemies in 2008 when he supported Barack Obama, a decision that prompted his resignation from his fathers magazine. Further angering his conservative forbears, he currently contributes columns to the Daily Beast, which recently bought that leftie rag Newsweek. Buckley is known largely for his fictional political satires such as Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia that skewer the institutions he was born into with nonpartisan evenhandedness. His latest tome, a memoir about his parents called Losing Mum and Pup, has been greeted with inevitable vitriol from his fathers worshipers. Hear him discuss this and more at 3 p.m. Thursday at the Society of the Four Arts (2 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach). Admission is free for members and $35 for nonmembers. Call 561-655-7227, or visit fourarts.org.
Tue., March 15, 3 p.m., 2011