Book Description

A #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and “one of the finest and most gripping political novels of our era”(The New York Times). Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent is one of the high points of twentieth-century literature, a seminal work of political fiction by a Washington DC insider that is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1959. Drury has penetrated the world’s stormiest political battleground—the smoke-filled committee rooms of the United States Senate—to reveal the bitter conflicts set in motion when the President calls upon the Senate to confirm his controversial choice for Secretary of State. This novel is a true epic showing in fascinating detail the minds and motives of the statesmen, the opportunists, the idealists. From a Senate old-timer’s wily maneuvers, a vicious demagogue’s blistering smear campaign, the ugly personal jealousies that turn a highly qualified candidate into a public spectacle, to the tragic martyrdom of a presidential aspirant who refuses to sacrifice his principles for his career—never has there been a more revealing picture of Washington’s intricate political, diplomatic, and social worlds. Advise and Consent is a timeless story with clear echoes of today’s headlines. Includes Allen Drury’s never-before-published original preface to Advise and Consent, his essay for the Hoover Institution on the writing of the book, as well as poignant personal memoirs from Drury’s heirs. “Fifty years after its publication and astounding success . . . Allen Drury's novel remains the definitive Washington tale.” —The Wall Street Journal