Advise and Consent

Advise and Consent is the story of the nomination of Robert Leffingwell for Secretary of State, and the battle within the Senate to both defeat him and confirm him. Many of the characters - the majority leader, the President, senators, and Leffingwell himself - bear startling resemblance to political characters in history such as Sen. Robert Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Alger Hiss. Advise and Consent is one of my favorite novels for two reasons. First, it offers the best fictional "inside Washington" account, probably ever. Secondly, each character is defined expertly and painstakingly; you will rarely find better characterization in a novel then in Advise and Consent. If you're a politico, or if you're simply looking to read about complex, intelligent people with clearly defined, and sometimes insidious, goals, read Advise and Consent.

Allen Drury, a former AP reporter wrote this novel in 1959 and it instantly became a bestseller and deserving winner of the Pulitzer Prize. No one else since Drury has been able to capture political institutions as they are to construct a compelling story. In the end "Advise And Consent" would spawn five sequels that proved equally compelling as well.Sadly, Allen Drury's stature as an author has always been downplayed by critics because alone among authors, he was a political conservative who often used his novels to make devastating indictments of the liberal news media and liberal politicians. And this is something that most critics always use as an excuse to condemn Drury's writings (there is never any similar litmus test applied by critics when it comes to the rampant leftism of an author like Gore Vidal). And yet, go through Drury's "Advise And Consent" series and you will find more insights into 1960s America than you will find from any other novelist.

What a novel! I understand why it stayed more than 100 weeks on the New York Times best sellers list when Drury's book was released in 1960. It is very well written novel with a brilliant plot. To love this book I think that you have to be, like me, very found of politics; but to just like it you only have to love good and clever books. The author knows its subject perfectly well and he ables you to understand better how U.S. politics works. Even if the book got a lot of pages it doesn't seem long at all. You will be sad when you will get to the last page: you'll ask for more! As you may have guessed, I highly recommend you this masterpiece.

Like many other people, I first read this American classic for high school civics. I've since reread it twice more, and it's worth it. "Advise and Consent" is a painless education in how the Congress works, and no wonder! Drury was a Capitol Hill reporter for many years (I believe he started in Truman's administration).Aside from his political knowledge, Drury's characters stay with you - they seem to be VERY real people. Action is, of course, laced with the 1950's modality, as well as the definite Cold War fears. Drury definitely deserved the Pulitzer Prize for this one!

I first read Mr. Drury's entire "Advise/Consent" series of novels when in high school and have read each book several times again since, for the pure enjoyment of it all. All books in this series were well written, with great plots and characters. One could not help but feel as if one was part of the story. The plots could very well be characterizations of today's leaders and situations, both racial and political. Also, the way Mr. Drury split off into 2 story-lines on how each presidency would look had one man lived and the other died in the last novel of this series was pure genius and writing at its best!! The "Advise and Consent" novel was a VERY GOOD and EXCELLENT story of how the Senate goes about its business and the viciousness of politics. It was very exciting and a very fast read, NOT BORING as Mr. Leffingwell would have us all believe. For a good companion to this first novel, I would highly recommend the movie version of "Advise and Consent," starring Henry Fonda.