This piece — called Free To Be His Own Buckley — about Christopher Buckley in The New York Times yesterday spoke to me so much, not necessarily from a political standpoint (OK, maybe partly that) but from a writing standpoint.

My favorite part, speaking about his famous father’s death earlier this year:

“There is something ironically liberating when the father figure dies,” he said … “You are for the first time, I think, fully your own man. It’s also awful. I miss him every day. But I can now write about things I was not terribly comfortable writing about.”

That is an amazing sentiment coming from a 56-year-old man. I come into contact with writers who wrestle with this all the time. How bracing to read it here.

And by the way, in the same Sunday edition, Buckley wrote a piece for the Book Review section that intrigued me because it was about two famous writers writing memoirs about returning to Catholicism: Joe Eszterhas and Anne Rice. Check out Hallelujah Chorus.