

Story went through many iterations: theater play, screenplay, musical, finally transformed into a novel, and the lead character switched political parties along the way. You can feel the different media in the plotting, lack of interiority. Tries to tread a line between earnestness and farce; wish it were a bit more ridiculous & heightened.
137 “This is what politics is really like […] It wasn‘t about doing good, it was about being less awful.”