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All the King's Men | Introduction

Critics greeted the August 1946 publication of All the King’s Men with immediate high praise. Diana Trilling in the Nation proclaimed it “a very remarkable piece of novel-writing,” adding, “I doubt indeed whether it can be matched in American fiction.” Two years later, Walter Allen, reviewing the novel’s British release in The New Statesman & Nation called it “a very formidable attempt at a novel on the grand scale.”

On a very basic level, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men can be identified as a roman à clef, a novel in which real persons appear as fictional characters. Readers recognized the novel’s demagogic southern governor, Willie Stark, as similar to Huey P. Long, “the Kingfish,” former governor of Louisiana and that state’s U. S. senator in the mid-1930s. Jack Burden, right-hand man to Governor Stark, narrates the novel, recounting the rise and fall of his boss. Willie starts as an idealistic young lawyer, committed to helping the “little guy,” but evolves into a politician whose power hinges on the numerous shady deals he makes to carry out his vision of what government should be doing.

But multiple generations of readers can testify that All the King’s Men is much more than merely a political or historical novel. Jack’s story parallels Willie’s; he is a young man struggling to understand who he is and what he believes in. His and Willie’s personal transformations rise above the mere retelling of a political tragedy.

If there was any doubt as to the novel’s ongoing influence, in 1996, Joe Klein, under the name Anonymous, published Primary Colors, a novel based on Bill Clinton’s political rise and machinations. The novel was deeply influenced by Warren’s All the King’s Men.

All the King's Men Summary

Chapter One
When All the King’s Men opens, it is the summer of 1936, but Jack Burden is telling the story of himself and Willie Stark from the vantage point of 1939. Sugar-Boy is driving Governor Willie Stark, his son and his wife, and his assistants Jack Burden, Sadie Burke, and Tiny Duffy to Stark’s father’s farm outside Mason City, a medium-sized town in the southern United States. They stop in Mason City, where Willie and the others go into a drugstore for a soft drink. From the behavior of the customers and those who work in the store, and from the fact that there is a huge picture of Governor Stark there, he clearly is very well known and well liked among these people.

Willie and the group continue to Willie’s widowed father’s farm. Willie and the group have come here primarily to take some poignant photographs of Willie at his boyhood home. Sadie, the governor’s secretary, alerts Willie and Jack that Judge Irwin has reneged on a promise to support Willie’s preferred candidate for the U. S. Senate. After dinner, Willie and Jack drive to Burden’s Landing, Judge Irwin’s home, as well as Jack’s childhood home, to pay a call on the judge. The judge is an old friend of Jack’s family, and Jack cautions his boss that the judge does not scare easily.

Willie demands to know why the judge has changed his backing to Callahan, the man running against Willie’s candidate, Masters. After Willie vaguely threatens Judge Irwin, the judge tells Willie and Jack to leave. Willie demands that Jack find some dirt on the judge, however long it takes.

The chapter ends with Jack, in 1939, reflecting on what has happened since the summer of 1936. Masters won the Senate race, but he is now dead. Jack’s friend, Adam, is also dead, and Jack indicates that he did get some dirt on the judge.

Chapter Two
It is 1922, and Jack is writing for the Chronicle and travels to Mason City to find out about a school construction scandal. Willie is the county treasurer, and he is trying to get the people of the county to see that the county commissioners are scheming to give the construction contract to J. H. Moore, a company that has come in with the highest bid but has ties to one of the county commissioners. Willie has reasons to believe that the bricks J. H. Moore will use are substandard. The commissioners argue that the company with the low bid is unacceptable because it will bring in blacks to do the work at low pay, taking jobs away from whites. Lucy, Willie’s wife, loses her teaching job, and Willie loses the next election for county treasurer. He goes back to helping his father on their farm and studying for the bar exam.

Two years later, three children die and a number are crippled when the fire escape pulls away from the brick siding of the school house. Willie’s earlier warnings are remembered, and he becomes a hero in the county. Willie is drafted to run in the Democratic gubernatorial primary but doesn’t realize that he is part of Joe Harrison’s campaign plot to siphon rural votes from a third candidate, Sam MacMurfee. Jack is assigned by his newspaper to cover Willie’s campaign.

Willie is a terrible campaigner because his speeches are about the technical details of his ideas for a new tax code. Sadie Burke, who has been secretly assigned to monitor Willie’s campaign for Harrison, finally can’t stand that Willie is so naïve, so she tells him all about the scheme. Willie is angry and gets drunk for the first time. Jack helps him make a campaign barbecue the next day, at which he tells the voters how he has been duped. The crowd loves his “I am a hick, just like you” speech. He drops out of the campaign, backs MacMurfee, and swears that he will be back.

In 1930, Willie runs in the Democratic primary again and goes on to win the governorship. Jack resigns from the newspaper because he doesn’t feel good about using his column to support the other candidate, which the paper’s management has been pressuring him to do. Willie calls him and offers him a job.

Chapter Three
The year is 1933. Jack shares more about his childhood and family. He takes some time off and returns to Burden’s Landing to visit his mother. They go to Judge Irwin’s house for dinner, where a conversation about Governor Stark begins among the guests. The guests complain that he has “taxed this state half to death,” but Judge Irwin responds that government must provide more services now than in the past. When Jack speaks about his boss, the guests are... » Complete All the King's Men Summary