As you can see from the cover, this is one well-read book. I read it for the first time during or just after high school, and its poetic gravity touched me on a cellular level, shaped my sensibilities. That's really what it's like, one effortless poem woven around a dramatic saga of the rise and fall of an honest man. Based on the life and political career of Louisiana politician and man-of-the-people, Huey Long, the novel tracks the long, slow corruption and sad demise of Everyman, Willy Stark, and explores the tectonic forces within the walls of power, the twisting and eroding of even the purest of intention and the most upright of characters. The story is populated by characters so fulsome that any one of them could qualify for a social insurance number. So lovingly does he sculpt them that they protrude half off the page like bas relief. Each one has deeply endearing idiosyncrasies, dark and deep secrets, and the driest of humour.
I've had this book for as long as I can remember, and before that, it belonged to my father. It is deep and full and lovely and I'm going to keep it
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