All the King's Men
All the King's Men,novel by Robert Penn Warren, published in 1946, winner of a Pulitzer Prize. The protagonist is said to be based on Huey Long.
Willie Stark, a self-educated Southern backcountry man, infatuated with power and dreams of public service, is elected governor of his state. Vital, unscrupulous, and demagogic, he attracts into his employ Jack Burden, a newspaperman and “student of history” in search of truth; Sadie Burke, an intense and intrepid secretary, who becomes his mistress; and Tiny Duffy, a fat yes-man. Willie sends Jack to Burden's Landing, his childhood home, to find something with which to blackmail Judge Irwin, a dignified, honorable, old family friend and former attorney general, who reneged on a promise to the Boss. In his “excursion into the past,” Jack renews old friendships with Adam Stanton, an idealististic surgeon, and his sister Anne, the unmarried patrician who was his first love. Through Jack they...
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