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Political Books: What Campaign Novels Can Teach Us

  First Posted: 02/17/2012 2:24 pm   Updated: 02/17/2012 2:24 pm

By Sara Benincasa for Bookish:

Campaign novels always make for dishy reading, but in a presidential election year, they really get us into the spirit. Check out these thrilling, chilling, secrets-spilling works of fiction -- some of which bear a rather, er, uncanny resemblance to real events in recent American history. You might just learn something about the real-life business of political horse racing.

Idealists can become bullies
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"All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren's 1946 novel created the template for all the campaign novels to come. The Pulitzer Prize-winning tale follows the political career of Willie Stark, a dynamic Louisiana populist in the Huey Long mold who rises to the governorship in the 1930s. Along the way, he transforms from an idealistic lawyer and unlikely gubernatorial hopeful to a corrupt, controversial leader who engenders loyalty among the people and enmity among many of his colleagues. It's been adapted for the big screen twice, in 2006 and 1949, when it won an Oscar for Best Picture.
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By Sara Benincasa for Bookish: Campaign novels always make for dishy reading, but in a presidential election year, they really get us into the spirit. Check out these thrilling, chilling, secrets-s...
By Sara Benincasa for Bookish: Campaign novels always make for dishy reading, but in a presidential election year, they really get us into the spirit. Check out these thrilling, chilling, secrets-s...
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walkerhds
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09:05 PM on 02/18/2012
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. It may be 40 years old and the author is dead, but it sums up the experience of political campaigns like nothing else.
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naschkatze
A free man creates himself.
2049 Fans
11:01 AM on 02/18/2012
There is a novel by British C.P. Snow, The Masters, which obviously is not about American politics (the election of a master of an Oxbridge college instead) but about politics in a generic way: the intangible, the unpredictable nature of the 'game'. A subtle but revealing book.
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