SOURCE: Carson, Tom. “Primary Education.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (28 January 1996): 1, 12.

In the following review, Carson offers a positive assessment of Primary Colors and maintains that the novel contains reportorial skill as well as literary merit.

Reviewers of Primary Colors have at least one reason to be thankful to the book's unidentified author: They won't need to use up much space familiarizing their readers with the plot. As advertised, this roman à clef is so blatantly an insider's account of the 1992 Clinton campaign that practically all of its principal characters are instantly recognizable, from doughnut-scarfing touchy-feely “Gov. Jack Stanton” and his redoubtable (and mostly just touchy) wife, “Susan,” on down. So little has been altered in relation to the actual events of Bill Clinton's topsy-turvy race for the Democratic nomination that when the fictionalized story does deviate from the familiar version, readers are likely to feel somewhat cheated—in...