An extremely good movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick based on this novel was released in 1999. The novel is very similar and yet different in some key ways, and it’s a fast, enjoyable read.

The story is told from the point of view of the key players in a minor drama that mirrors the little dramas we all experience in our own lives, which seem so important at the time – so important that they have the power to change the course of a life – and yet are ultimately so inconsequential. The particular drama chronicled in Election concerns a high school student-body president election, the three candidates and the teacher who fixed the results.

I guess this was the book the movie starring Matthew Broderick was based on. I haven’t seen the movie, but I suspect it came out about a year after American Beauty. This book had that feel to it—middle aged men acting like jerks around women young enough to be their daughters. Did I mention I don’t particularly like protagonists I can’t sympathize with? I read it in one evening, so I guess I’m glad it was a fast read, since it wasn’t that good.