Primary Colors (novel)

Primary Colors (novel)

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.