Product Description

A novel based on an insider's account of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. The anonymous author is reported to be someone close to the Clintons.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #672839 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

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.

From Publishers Weekly
The circumstances behind this crackling, highly perceptive study of a presidential campaign that remarkably resembles Bill Clinton's are bizarre. We are assured that not even its publisher, Harold Evans, who signed the book, or its editor knows the identity of the author. A third party, independent of both the publisher and the author's agent, verified his (or her) credentials and oversaw the contract signing. All this has naturally led to the assumption that the author may be someone highly placed in Washington, possibly even within the Clinton Administration; the intimate knowledge of Washington folkways the narrative exhibits seems to bear that out. On the other hand, the literary sophistication on display-the shaping of the story, the characterizations, the atmosphere, the dialogue-is so considerable it seems a professional writer must be at work. But while the mystery may help galvanize sales, it does not affect the quality of the book, which stands as a definitive political novel for these uneasy times-a novel that's knowing about the easy abuse of sincerity, the overblown role of the media (all reporters are "scorps," short for scorpions), the readiness to confuse means with ends. Henry Burton, the narrator, is a bright, youngish black man who rises quickly to a key position on the presidential primary campaign staff of Jack Stanton, governor of a small Southern state. Stanton is a brilliant portrait of a born politician, a man at once deeply calculating and genuinely spontaneous in his human reactions; his wife, Susan, a smart lawyer, despises his louche sexual adventuring but is driven by her own demons. Around them revolves a superbly observed staff, a mixture of deep cynicism, muddled idealism and, in the person of Libby, a ghost from Stanton's past who is at once explosively funny and tragic, a compulsive seeker of the truth. Stanton's fortunes fluctuate wildly in the campaign as he slogs through New Hampshire, endures a drubbing in New York (where a governor not unlike Mario Cuomo decided not to run) and seems to cause a heart attack in a buttoned-down rival in Florida. This inspires the entry of a mystery candidate with a magic touch, who turns out, in one of the novel's few overplotted passages, to have his own complex problems; the resolution, however, strikes just the right uneasily ambiguous note. Throughout the book, the attention to physical and emotional detail in the draining political process, the sparkling intelligence and-through the use of Henry as hero-the unusual empathy with which a range of African Americans are portrayed suggest a very considerable new novelist.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA?The widely ballyhooed and thinly disguised story of Bill Clinton's 1992 primary campaign, this book has received much media attention, mainly due to the "Anonymous" author. The story is supposed to be so authentic that it could only have been written by an inside staffer. It has become a major Washington pastime to guess the writer's identity. Unfortunately, that's the only suspense in the novel because the ending is history. Nearly half of the book focuses on the New Hampshire Primary. The second half wanders into the arbitrary romances and foibles of the characters. The real strength here is in the characterizations. Jack Stanton, the governor of a small Southern state, is seeking the Democratic nomination. He "has his flaws, but his stamina, optimism and appetite for life are spectacular." Susan Stanton as Hillary is every bit as brilliant, perceptive, and determined as one might imagine. It is fun to guess the identity of the other characters. Is that Mario Cuomo? Jessie Jackson? James Carville? This novel is more informative about politics than any government textbook. It will appeal to student-council presidents and young Bill Clintons, but can be a tedious read, particularly for those outside the Beltway.?Suzanne Abrams, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

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.

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.