A presidential primary, a mayor’s last race and a high school vote can all turn on the same question. How far will someone go to keep a candidate in the running? These five novels about elections follow the people who have to answer it, from a presidential aide handling a scandal to a teacher who thinks he knows better than the students casting their ballots.
Start with Primary Colors for the pace of a national campaign or The Last Hurrah for a race fought one neighborhood at a time. If you want to see what happens when a campaign takes over a friendship, pick up The Hopefuls.
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1. Primary Colors by Joe Klein
Henry Burton joins the presidential campaign of Jack Stanton, a Southern governor whose ability to connect with voters is matched by his ability to give his staff something new to worry about. Originally published anonymously, Joe Klein’s novel takes its cues from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Its fictional setting gives Klein room to ask how a smart person like Henry keeps finding reasons to stay.
This is the pick for readers who want the pace of a campaign bus and the mess of the conversations aboard it. From the outside, a scandal looks like a test of the candidate. Through Henry’s eyes, it becomes a test of everyone who has agreed to defend him.
2. The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor
Veteran mayor Frank Skeffington takes his nephew along for one final campaign in a New England city. They go to fundraisers and wakes, places where the difference between calling on a friend and calling on a voter can be hard to make out. The nephew begins to understand how a man with Skeffington’s reputation can command such affection.
The pleasure here is in seeing how local that power is. A mayor who remembers a family in mourning can inspire loyalty that an opponent with a cleaner reputation would struggle to earn. Read this one for the street-level workings of a political machine and for the nephew’s growing unease at how much he likes the man running it.
Find The Last Hurrah on Amazon
3. The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close
Beth moves to Washington, D.C., with her politically ambitious husband, Matt. The two become close with Jimmy, a rising political figure, and his wife, Ash. When Matt goes to Texas to work on Jimmy’s campaign, the friendship has to absorb a new reality. One man is running for office, and the other is working to get him there.
Close follows the race through Beth, who can see how easily campaign logic spills into a marriage. A friendship can survive a lot of envy when everyone has somewhere else to go at the end of the day. It’s a harder thing to put aside when one couple’s plans depend on the other couple’s success. Pick this for the view from the dinner table after the workday should have ended.
4. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Willie Stark rises from small-town politics to the governor’s office in a Southern state. Jack Burden, a former journalist who goes to work for him, tells the story from close enough to see how Stark wins over a crowd and what his staff is expected to do once the crowd goes home.
Warren follows the consequences of that rise well past the campaign itself. That makes this the strongest choice if you’re interested in the promises candidates make when they’re still outsiders. Watch what happens to those promises once the people who made them have favors to repay and the power to collect. The novel won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel.
Find All the King’s Men on Amazon
5. Election by Tom Perrotta
Tracy Flick is running for student-body president when a teacher, Jim McAllister, encourages popular athlete Paul Warren to run against her. The contest gives Perrotta room to show how a person with authority can dress up a personal grievance as a concern about fairness.
The school setting makes the interference unusually easy to see. The same people who supervise the election also have to see the candidates in the hallway the next day. Read it for the comedy of a small race that feels enormous to everyone involved, especially the adult who could have left it alone.
For another award-winning novel after All the King’s Men, browse our list of Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction books.
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