[.ca] Primary Colors (ISBN 0099743612)

From Amazon.com:
The famous -- or infamous -- roman a clef about the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. You've read the hype; now read the book. Primary Colors has its rich rewards as a savvy insider's look at life on the stump. But it travels far beyond mere gossip and expose and discovers a convincing world of its own, peopled by smart cookies, nutcases, and wheeler-dealers, whose public and private lives illuminate each other -- sometimes by casting dark shadows. This story spans the novelistic spectrum from bedroom farce to high moral drama, and it paints a picture of the political state of the nation so vivid and authentic that one finds in it the deepest kind of truth -- the kind of truth that only fiction can tell.

skeletons in the closet:
Like its companion novel "The Running Mate", the main message of this novel is that politics is a dirty business and that any politician can be threatened or brought down by skeletons in the closet, as we have seen, in Nixon, Clinton, and most recently with NJ Senator Bob Toricelli. The main protagonist Gov. Jack Stanton is supposedly based on Clinton and there are obvious similarities, including the fact that he has an ambitious, intelligent wife. In this novel we are privy to the inside workings of a political primary campaign. There are excellent sketches of some of the minor characters, including Momma, Stanton's mother, and Henry, the narrator, and some of the other campaign workers and politicians are pretty well developed as characters. There are substantial amounts of subtle humor and also quite a bit of sexual innuendo directed at Stanton, another similarity with Clinton. Stanton's campaign workers will go to any lengths to dig up dirt from the distant past on an opponent, and they must likewise protect their candidate from similar accusations. All in all I found it to be an interesting, fast read.

Tedious:
The first 50 pages manages to capture Bill Clinton's combination of sincerity and self-aggrandizing perfectly but once the Gennifer Flowers character enters the scene the book dies a slow lingering death. No longer is the book about politics. Instead it's about the world of the campaign worker that has to suffer with every headline. That might make compelling drama in the hands of a better writer but Joe Klein merely makes the entire thing an exercise in tedium. As the book moves along from scandal to scandal the reader is left with the feeling of reading National Enquirer instead of something serious. While other journalists praised the book for being so true to the campaign, this is the kind of bloodless book that a journalist would write. There's not one compelling character. Every character speaks in soundbites and none of them are very interesting. Most of them wear out their welcome by the second page they appear on. Even worse is the decision to make the main character black. While Klein manages to say some cool things about race relations in the aforementioned first fifty pages, he's then stuck with writing a black character that can't shut up about being black - yet sounding WASPish. That wouldn't be so bad if a jive-talking standin for Jesse Jackson didn't come in and turn the entire book into a minstral show for about 4-5 pages. In that moment you can tell that Joe Klein is just as cautious about race as the narrator accuses other white people of being - mostly because Joe Klein is very obviously a White Guy trying to write Black and failing miserably. Besides those obvious flaws there are also the boring subplots including the second infidelity of the "Jack Stanton" character and the romance between the narrator and another campaign aid. A romance that is about as believable as the Jesse Jackson character. I'm not even sure which character is supposed to be Carville. Doesn't matter because nowhere is Carville's personality taken into account. If this book teaches you anything it should be to avoid books that are compared favorably to All the King's Men - another atrociously self-indulgent exercise that loses the main character's personality in the self-conscious narrative.

Primary Colors:
I won't say much because it's already been said. But I will add that this is one of the best works of fiction I have ever read. While worth reading for the craft alone, the subject is at least as riveting.

Cynical Look at Politics:
Joe Klein, no not of NBA infamy, takes a poke or two at the political foundation of America - in a humorous manner. Told in 1st person narration by Henry Burton, a young African American with political and civil rights lineage, Primary Colors proves to be a satirical look at the election process, the genuineness of the political candidate, the many faults of the system itself, as well as the intricacies of running a campaign from the inside - the staffers' points of view. Having read All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, I felt compelled to pick up Primary Colors and have a look-see. Although not on the Pulitzer Prize winning level of its predecessor, Primary Colors provides for biting political satire and insight as well as just pure entertainment. I must admit that despite the lack of redeeming value that the book provided, I read it tirelessly as I found it entertaining & humorous.

An outsider's view:
I am not an American. I am not really into politics. And i first read this in 2003, in the era of Dubya rather than Bill. But i still found this to be an entertaining novel. The premise is a good one - the presidential candidate in question, Jack Stanton, is obviously meant to represent Bill Clinton - a southern governor commited to Kennedy style politics with a strong wife and many weaknesses, a major one being the inability to keep his hands off other women. The narrator of this story is Henry, a political animal who is roped into Stanton's campaign, thriving on the politics, never quite sure if Stanton is sincere or a purely political animal. There are other interesting characters, from the mad 'dustbuster' Libby who has been with the Stantons from the start to Daisy who works in communications and becomes Henry's on-again off-again love interest. (A plot device that doesn't always work) Henry is the grandson of one of the black leaders of the civil rights movement, yet this never seems to get a full outing in this book - it is one of the many complexities of Henry's character that needs further exploration. There are times when you wish the author would either stick purely to the campaign and politics or work more on Henry as a character, rather than trying to mix both. Even for those who don't necessarily read 'Political fiction' (is there such a genre? There is now!) 'Primary Colors' is worth a look, even as an insight into a period of American politics where the gloves were off and people still voted for a candidate coated with slime. It will have you questioning the motives and appearances of your politicians, wherever you are voting.