A review by sde
Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics by Joe Klein
3.0
This one was hard to rate. I didn't read it when it first came out because it sounded like an overblown fad that was made popular solely because it was authored anonymously, and people were trying to figure out who wrote it and what was real in it. But it is a lot better than that, and I'm glad I read it, especially with the distance of time since the Clinton administration.
I will admit that I looked up the career dates of many people while reading this book because many characters sounded like real live politicos. And I suspect I was usually correct about who the character might be based on, even if sometimes not consciously by the author. Given the time now - summer 2020 - when current NY governor Andrew Cuomo is having a press conference almost every day - it was amusing to read the descriptions of Orlando and Jimmy Ozio, who almost certainly were Mario and Andrew Cuomo.
Some of the scenes and language didn't age well, and the reader may cringe at some of the scenes. On the other hand, I suspect that a lot of this really does happen in the scrappy world of political campaigning, even now.
I will admit that I looked up the career dates of many people while reading this book because many characters sounded like real live politicos. And I suspect I was usually correct about who the character might be based on, even if sometimes not consciously by the author. Given the time now - summer 2020 - when current NY governor Andrew Cuomo is having a press conference almost every day - it was amusing to read the descriptions of Orlando and Jimmy Ozio, who almost certainly were Mario and Andrew Cuomo.
Some of the scenes and language didn't age well, and the reader may cringe at some of the scenes. On the other hand, I suspect that a lot of this really does happen in the scrappy world of political campaigning, even now.