Book Review- All the King's Men

For the Mount TBR Pile challenge, Back to the Classics challenge, 12 Month Classics challenge, Shelf Love challenge and the Classics Club I read Robert Penn Warren's book All the King's Men.

Synopsis from Goodreads: More than just a classic political novel, Warren’s tale of power and corruption in the Depression-era South is a sustained meditation on the unforeseen consequences of every human act, the vexing connectedness of all people and the possibility—it’s not much of one—of goodness in a sinful world. Willie Stark, Warren’s lightly disguised version of Huey Long, the onetime Louisiana strongman/governor, begins as a genuine tribune of the people and ends as a murderous populist demagogue. Jack Burden is his press agent, who carries out the boss’s orders, first without objection, then in the face of his own increasingly troubled conscience. And the politics? For Warren, that’s simply the arena most likely to prove that man is a fallen creature. Which it does.

This was an absolutely fascinating book. At the beginning I felt like it was a little slow but as it went on I was entirely captivated by it. I kept turning the pages to find out what was going to happen. None of the characters were really good, which normally turns me off from a book. They were all intriguing though. Their character and motivations keep the story rolling. The politics were messy, as politics often are. As Warren said, politics really does show off man's moral depravity.
Overall I enjoyed this book though it was not my normal cup of tea.


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