All the King's Men: 2006 Movie Tie-In Edition [Paperback]

This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a southern-fried politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. Though Stark quickly sheds his idealism, his right-hand man, Jack Burden -- who narrates the story -- retains it and proves to be a thorn in the new governor's side. Stark becomes a successful leader, but at a very high price, one that eventually costs him his life. The award-winning book is a play of politics, society and personal affairs, all wrapped in the cloak of history. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Nonfiction Reprints
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

This reconstituted edition of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning dissection of Louisiana politics gets a serious makeover by scholar Polk, who rescues the cuts and alterations made by the original editors as well as returning protagonist Willie Stark to his original name, Willie Talos. There is also an appendix and editorial notes. Considering this title's importance in American letters and the quite reasonable price, libraries should invest in this edition.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Over the course of more than two centuries of vivid political history, there is perhaps only one full-blooded American novel of politics that plunges deep into the hearts of its characters and therefore into the hearts of its readers, thus rising to the top ranks of American fiction. That is Robert Penn Warren's lush All the King's Men." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prizewinning novel traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey Kingfish Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success. Generally considered the finest novel ever written on American politics, All the Kings Men is a literary classic. SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING SEAN PENN JUDE LAW KATE WINSLET JAMES GANDOLFINI MARK RUFFALO PATRICIA CLARKSON and ANTHONY HOPKINS

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize "It's a measure of the enduring worth of All the King's Men that Willie Stark has entered out collective literary consciousness, in the company of Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, Rabbit Angstrom, and very few others."--Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success. Generally considered the finest novel ever written on American politics, All the King's Men is a literary classic. "Over the course of more than two centuries of vivid political history, there is perhaps only one full-blooded American novel of politics that plunges deep into the hearts of its characters and therefore into the hearts of its readers, thus rising to the top ranks of American fiction. That is Robert Penn Warren's lush All the King's Men."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) won three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, the National Medal for Literature, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1986 he was named the country's first poet laureate. [billing block] Motion Picture Artwork and Photography © 2005 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved. [billing block c/r line must be included on back cover, per agreement w/Sony]

Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic, and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry. He won the Pulitzer in 1947 for his novel All the King's Men (1946) and won his subsequent Pulitzer Prizes for poetry in 1957 and then in 1979.

MASON CITY. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new. Or was new, that day we went up it. You look up the highway and it is straight for miles, coming at you, with the black line down the center coming at and at you, black and slick and tarry-shining against the white of the slab, and the heat dazzles up from the white slab so that only the black line is clear, coming at you with the whine of the tires, and if you don't quit staring at that line and don't take a few deep breaths and slap yourself hard on the back of the neck you'll hypnotize yourself and you'll come to just at the moment when the right front wheel hooks over into the black dirt shoulder off the slab, and you'll try to jerk her back on but you can't because the slab is high like a curb, and maybe you'll try to reach to turn off the ignition just as she starts the dive. But you won't make it, of course. Then a nigger chopping cotton a mile away, he'll look up and see the little column of black smoke standing up above the vitriolic, arsenical green of the cotton rows, and up against the violent, metallic, throbbing blue of the sky, and he'll say, "Lawd God, hit's a-nudder one done done hit!" And the next nigger down the next row, he'll say, "Lawd God," and the first nigger will giggle, and the hoe will lift again and the blade will flash in the sun like a heliograph. Then a few days later the boys from the Highway Department will mark the spot with a little metal square on a metal rod stuck in the black dirt off the shoulder, the metal square painted white and on it in black a skull and crossbones. Later on love vine will climb up it, out of the weeds. But if you wake up in time and don't hook your wheel off the slab, you'll go whipping on into the dazzle and now and then a car will come at you steady out of the dazzle and will pass you with a snatching sound as though God-Almighty had ripped a tin roof loose with his bare hands. Way off ahead of you, at the horizon where the cotton fields are blurred into the light, the slab will glitter and gleam like water, as though the road were flooded. You'll go whipping toward it, but it will always be ahead of you, that bright, flooded place, like a mirage. You'll go past the little white metal squares set on metal rods, with the skull and crossbones on them to mark the spot. For this is the country where the age of the internal combustion engine has come into its own. Where every boy is Barney Oldfield, and the girls wear organdy and batiste and eyelet embroidery and no panties on account of the climate and have smooth little faces to break your heart and when the wind of the car's speed lifts up their hair at the temples you see the sweet little beads of perspiration nestling there, and they sit low in the seat with their little spines crooked and their bent knees high toward the dashboard and not too close together for the cool, if you could call it that, from the hood ventil

Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning fictionalized account of Louisiana Governor Huey Long transfers well to audio. Michael Emerson's performance brings the characters to life with verve and personality, especially that of Willie Stark, the book's central character, and Jack Burden, Stark's idealistic right-hand man and the novel's narrator. Through a mix of understatement and intensity, Emerson clearly conveys the political turmoil underlying the book; his performance perfectly complements the story, which is as timely as it was sixty years ago. Some have called ALL THE KING'S MEN "the definitive novel about American politics," but it is more. It is also an American tragedy. Emerson's reading does justice to a great work. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.