Journalist Joe Klein caused a furor this year by denying that he’d written Primary Colors, his undisguised fictional account of the Clinton campaign.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Curiously, there was no outrage directed at Klein’s writing–even though his fictional world is populated by racial, sexual, ageist, and regional stereotypes. Misogynistic descriptions dominate the book. Klein’s female characters are considered with a hypercritical eye: clothes first, physique second, a few facial features last if at all. Here’s a sampling.
A friend of the Hillary character (pages 61-62): “Richard would have despised her even if she weren’t dowdy and awful, even if she didn’t always wear power suits and running shoes and Gloria Steinem aviators, even if she wasn’t always rousting around in her purse for her compact, fussing with her hair, pulling out lipstick and applying it in the most ridiculous manner, squeezing her puckered lips around it, rolling it around once, twice, then saying–always–‘There!’”
