SOURCE: Tonkin, Boyd. Review of Primary Colors, by Joe Klein. New Statesman & Society 9, no. 392 (1 March 1996): 40.

In the following negative review, Tonkin describes Primary Colors as “a long exercise in dirt-dishing.”

What makes British politics such fun in real life wrecks it as a theme for art. How can any writer match the scriptless soap of Westminster? The parliamentary pantomime turns its actors into parodies of themselves. That makes for splendid entertainment—the cliff-hanging votes, the Question Time set-tos, the smart-alecky sketch-writing—but it skews most efforts to dramatise our public affairs. Instead of realism, we get the farcical intrigue of a Michael Dobbs or an Edwina Currie—or even the abysmal mugging down in Annie's Bar.

They order these things differently in the U.S. Chicanery on Capitol Hill favours chamber-drama, not melodrama. As for the presidential race, it tugs some unknown contender from nowhere to supreme power...