Advance Man

by Steven Jacques

Advance Man is an evergreen political adventure. Set in the hard-fought early days of the 2008 Democratic primary season, it is an insider's look behind the scenes at seventy-two hours in the most challenging and secretive, yet most public part of American presidential politics-the Advance operation that creates and controls the media image of a presidential candidate, as well as everything that happens within a quarter-mile radius. Although this book is explicated in the tradition of autobiographical fiction it is a must for anyone eager to understand the guts of an American political campaign.

486 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2014

Reviews

[Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off good. Was fun. Got old. I guess I need a classic storyline: something moving, driving the story forward. This makes for a great script, though. It's almost all dialogue.

[Moira]

The author Steve Jacques obviously knew his topic very well and I finally learned some of the duties of an advance man, and his team. I enjoyed the storyline of the fix of Obama's real-life campaign crisis. While this story had its enjoyable moments, however, it was way too long and repetitive.

I suspect the characterization of The Candidate/Obama was spot-on. And I am an Obama fan. So he's an introvert and a bit of a snob, so what? Obama's responsible for creating a lot of great legislation, and our nation is indebted to him and his family for their service.

I admire the author of this book, and his experience. I'm glad he will continue with this character as I'm sure many people will enjoy an on-going series with Bix, and his adventures in Advance World.

[Will Atkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t quit reading books, no matter how bad. I just don’t do it. Alas, this book was so bad, I couldn’t finish it. It’s riddled with typos (the author even misspelled the name of his own character), and has no real plot line. It’s full of cliches and self-aggrandizement. Save yourself the trouble and avoid this book!

[Donald Castellucci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story. Book had a lot of typos. Reminded me of my advance days!

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the more interesting novels about politics that I've read. Instead of focusing on a presidential candidate, it looks at the people who have the unenviable job of putting together, and pulling off, media events that are crafted to give the candidate maximum exposure during primary season. The novel's focus is on Bix, the Senior National Advance Lead and an old hand at the game of presidential politics. In the course of two days, Bix must produce a 35,000-person rally, a major endorsement event, and a "spontaneous" off-the-record event for local media. He does this while dealing with a persistent muckraking "journalist", a potential scandal that could derail the candidate's bid for office, and several irritating campaign officials. Does Bix pull it all off? Well, the ending reminded me of a poster I saw at one of my early jobs. It was a picture of a perplexed Charlie Brown with the following caption: "Doing a good job around here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit. You get a warm feeling but nobody notices."

[Meghan Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Fun voice... Great tension. Perfect for the political junkie. Only thing - my copy had such a crazy number of typos, I wondered if it was self-published. (It wasn't). But ignoring typos, I thoroughly enjoyed it and made me sorry I only worked one campaign (even then, I saw characters I recognised)! Was sad to see the characterisation of Obama, though....