Robert Penn Warren

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this classic book is generally regarded as the finest novel ever written on American politics. It describes the career of Willie Stark, a back-country lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power.

Willie Stark is an uncorrupted small-town mayor in 1950s Louisiana. He gets picked by the political machine to run as a wild card candidate in the upcoming gubernatorial race. But, when Willie realizes that he is being manipulated, he veers off on his own to become the darling of the electorate's downtrodden and forgotten hicks. Covering the campaign for a local paper is Jack Burden, whose editorial pieces become so admiring of Willie that he's fired....

"A collection of previously unpublished interviews with key figures of the black freedom struggle by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Penn Warren"--