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A review by mburnamfink
Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics by Joe Klein
4.0
Primary Colors is a strange beast of a political thriller, a novel based on the 1992 Clinton campaign, where the names have been changed and some events altered. Jack Stanton is a charismatic governor of a southern state, a new kind of democrat who blends populist politics with Ivy League credentials. Jack Stanton can light up a room, but he's got feet of clay. He avoided serving during the Vietnam War, and he can't stop sleeping around.
Our viewpoint is campaign manager Henry Burton, the grandson of a legendary civil rights leader (think Martin Luther King), and a consummate political staffer. Burton is brought on as deputy campaign manager, and joins the slog through the retail politics of the New Hampshire primary. Challengers arise, various flavors of strange cold Northeasterners, along with scandal, as Susan Stanton's hairdresser publicly accuses Jack Stanton of an affair, and the teenage daughter of the owner of Stanton's favorite BBQ joint accuses him of impregnating her. Burton, meanwhile has his own romance with media whiz Daisy, and teams up with the bipolar and aggressively queer "dustbuster" Libby (partially based on Vince Foster) to kill threats to the Stantons, and dig up opposition research on the other candidates, including a strange story of sex, drugs, and corrupt real estate deals.
When this book is good, it's very good, capturing the frenetic amphetamine rush of politics, the excitement of the game, and the larger-than-life quality of those who play it. Primary Colors gets the thrill of the great American experiment in democracy, what it means to be a Candidate, why people work such long hours for these people, the sordid deals and lies of what politics is, and the soaring ideals of what it might be.
But two things bring this down. The first is that the narrator is Black, and author Joe Klein so very White. I really do not need some white dude in TYOOL 2018 to pontificate about Blackness in America. And the second is that Henry is more a witness than a protagonist. I'm not sure if he makes a single real choice in the novel. He witnesses horrible things, he sees people destroyed by ambition, he finds love, loses it, regains it, but who is he? The political animal, a bag of reflexes watching C-SPAN, the ultimate empty suit.
Our viewpoint is campaign manager Henry Burton, the grandson of a legendary civil rights leader (think Martin Luther King), and a consummate political staffer. Burton is brought on as deputy campaign manager, and joins the slog through the retail politics of the New Hampshire primary. Challengers arise, various flavors of strange cold Northeasterners, along with scandal, as Susan Stanton's hairdresser publicly accuses Jack Stanton of an affair, and the teenage daughter of the owner of Stanton's favorite BBQ joint accuses him of impregnating her. Burton, meanwhile has his own romance with media whiz Daisy, and teams up with the bipolar and aggressively queer "dustbuster" Libby (partially based on Vince Foster) to kill threats to the Stantons, and dig up opposition research on the other candidates, including a strange story of sex, drugs, and corrupt real estate deals.
When this book is good, it's very good, capturing the frenetic amphetamine rush of politics, the excitement of the game, and the larger-than-life quality of those who play it. Primary Colors gets the thrill of the great American experiment in democracy, what it means to be a Candidate, why people work such long hours for these people, the sordid deals and lies of what politics is, and the soaring ideals of what it might be.
But two things bring this down. The first is that the narrator is Black, and author Joe Klein so very White. I really do not need some white dude in TYOOL 2018 to pontificate about Blackness in America. And the second is that Henry is more a witness than a protagonist. I'm not sure if he makes a single real choice in the novel. He witnesses horrible things, he sees people destroyed by ambition, he finds love, loses it, regains it, but who is he? The political animal, a bag of reflexes watching C-SPAN, the ultimate empty suit.