The Bookworm Club Review
Created | Updated Oct 7, 2003
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Primary Colors By Anonymous
Reviewed by Little Mischief
Primary Colors follows the beginnings of the Democratic Presidential Primary campaign of Jack Stanton, governor of an undisclosed 'small southern state'. It is quite an eye-opening look at American politics from an insider point of view.
What first struck me about Jack's character is that as much as I'm given to immediately dislike and distrust politicians, I really wanted to like Jack. He had so many redeeming qualities balanced by so many human flaws. He believed in what he was doing and wanted to do it for the right reasons. He wanted to be a different kind of politician, run a different kind of campaign. However, his biggest weakness was women, and his campaign suffered accusations of extramarital affairs.
The story is told from the perspective of an aide central to the
campaign, Henry Burton. Henry tries to believe in his candidate unfailingly but begins to have doubts when a paternity claim threatens to derail Jack's presidential bid, even moreso after a new candidate emerges midway through the Florida primary.
From hotel bedrooms to private jets, from down-home barbeque dinners to late nights at the local doughnut hole, from pristine political manoeuvring to deliberations over the aspects of mudslinging, I found this book entertaining in spite of my distaste for politics.
But there is more to this story that what is seen in black-and-white
print. Upon publication this book was immediately recognized as the
fictionalization of Bill Clinton's bid for the '92 presidential nomination. With this realization came rampant speculation over the identity of the anonymous author as well as the identities of several central characters and how much of the plot was founded in fact. To this end if you've not followed any press about this book since it's publication, in addition to following the story it's fun to guess who many of the central characters are - even if you have only a limited familiarity with American politics or the Clinton administration.
At the time of publishing it was popularly thought that George
Stephanopolos might be the mysterious storyteller but, in the end, it was revealed to be Joe Klein, a journalist who had covered the Democratic primary campaign for New York magazine in 1991. He has since written a sequel to Primary Colors titled The Running Mate as well as a non-fiction look at the Clinton administration titled The Natural.
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