This country is still dominated by Vaudeville. The reminder popped up again, as I was going through some old files to do cleanup and ran across some comments I had recorded after I finally got around to reading Joe Klein’s Primary Colors. Convenient racial, sexual, and regional stereotypes populate Klein’s cartoonish ‘southern’ landscape.  Even among its other rigidities, however, the novel's rather old-fashioned misogyny stands out, particularly in the way Klein details the physical imperfections of women around the nation.

Here is a very young girl from an African-American blue-collar family in Arkansas, portrayed as loyal supporters ...   more »