Novels to Accompany an Election Campaign

Now that Canada is gearing up for the longest Federal election campaign in memory, and the American Republican Presidential hopefuls are set to debate this week, it's time, perhaps, to think about what one might read while observing the parties' shenanigans.  Here are half a dozen, enough to keep you reading through all those weeks of campaign.

1. The ultimate political junkie's novel is Primary Colors, by Joe Klein.  It was originally published with "Anonymous" listed as the author, but Klein was eventually outted.  Several of the characters are clearly modelled on Bill and Hillary Clinton and their friends.

2.  Robert Penn Warren's All the Kings' Men, about an initially idealistic, but ultimately corrupt Southern politician.

3. The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon. An American POW from the Korean war is brainwashed  and programmed to kill a U.S presidential candidate.

4. Wag the Dog by Larry Bienhart.  Getting George Bush elected by staging a war.

5. The Suffrage of Elvira by V.S. Naipaul.  A slapstick, cynical novel about the first popular election on a newly independent island in the Caribbean.


6. And I'll throw one in that I did a long time ago: Endangered Species.  It  takes place in 1990 during a by-election that was inspired by the one where Gilles Duceppe was elected for the first time as a Bloc Québécois MP.  Worked a lot on the NDP campaign that summer  which was a disaster, but times change, don't they?

The book appears to be out of print, but you can still get it in some libraries, and I have a lot of copies in the basement, should anyone want one. (Price: $2 plus postage.)