Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics

The main appeal of Primary Colors, of course, lies in guessing who's who in the fictionalization of Bill Clinton's first bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and just how much of its juicy plot is true. Combining the narrative structure of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men with thinly disguised versions of headline news from the spring of 1992, Joe Klein created a portrait of American politics that has become virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.