SOURCE: Showalter, Elaine. “The Word on the Street.” London Review of Books 18, no. 5 (7 March 1996): 20.

In the following review, Showalter offers a positive assessment of Primary Colors and weighs in on the author controversy surrounding the novel.

At Kramerbooks, Washington's best bookstore-café, there's a menu of ‘Primary Colors Specials,’ including Lasagne di Paul Begalanese and Pork Chop George Stephen-applesauce. There's a copy prominently displayed in the new books section of the White House library, and 742,000 have been shipped to bookstores to meet the demand. It's number one on the New York Times best-seller list; North American paperback rights have been sold for ＄1.5 million, and Mike Nichols has bought the movie rights for another million. Garry Trudeau has put it into Doonesbury. Street vendors in Washington are selling buttons that read ‘I am not Anonymous.’

Primary Colors, the funny, literate and juicy roman à clef about the 1992 Democratic Presidential primary campaign...