Willmoore Kendall said that if Brent Bozell had stayed clear of the Buckley circle he might have become a fine senator from his native Nebraska. Kendall was wrong. I can’t imagine Nebraskans electing a theocrat—and a Roman Catholic one at that. But Buckley was responsible neither for Bozell’s theocratic views nor his conversion to Catholicism. Indeed, Bill Buckley was the best thing that ever happened to him. Their relationship was perhaps the single constant in Bozell’s tumultuous life that included conservative stardom, mental illness, and religious repentance, and is constantly in the background of Daniel Kelly’s impressive new biography, Living on Fire: The Life of L. Brent Bozell Jr.

Bozell arrived at Yale in 1946 after naval service in the Pacific. His friendship with Buckley was inevitable: both veterans, both favorite students of Kendall, both pronouncedly anti-communist. And besides, Buckley had a lovely sister, Trish, whom Bozell fell for and married. For a time they were considered equals, the co-authors of McCarthy and His Enemies. Although McCarthy was ambivalent about the book (“I don’t understand the book. . . too intellectual for me”), he invited Bozell to join his staff as speech writer and legal advisor. Meanwhile Buckley started National Review, and Bozell was there from the beginning, first as a contributor and then as a senior editor. Bozell’s reputation as orator competed with Buckley’s as journalist, and by the 1960s Bozell was so admired as a conservative commentator he was chosen to ghost-write