Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics is a roman à clef, a work of fiction that purports to describe real life characters and events — namely, Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992. It has been compared to two other novels about American politics; Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1946) and O: A Presidential Novel (2011).
The book was originally published by an anonymous author, who was later found to be columnist Joe Klein. Kle...
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Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics is a roman à clef, a work of fiction that purports to describe real life characters and events — namely, Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992. It has been compared to two other novels about American politics; Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1946) and O: A Presidential Novel (2011).
The book was originally published by an anonymous author, who was later found to be columnist Joe Klein. Klein completed a sequel of sorts, The Running Mate in 2000, focusing on the Primary Colors character of Charlie Martin.
An early reviewer opined that the author wished to remain unknown because "Anonymity makes truthfulness much easier". Later commentators called the publishing of the book under an anonymous identity an effective marketing strategy that produced more publicity for the book, and thus more sales, without calling into question the author's actual inside knowledge.
Several people, including former Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet...
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