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: #813882 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 366 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.