Strange, the impact of History, the grip it had on us, yet it was nothing but words. Accidental accretions for the most part, leaving most of the story out. We have not yet begun to explore the true power of the Word, I thought. What if we broke all the rules, played games with the evidence, manipulated language itself, made History a partisan ally? Of course, the Phantom was already onto this, wasn't he? Ahead of us again. What were his dialectical machinations if not the dissolution of the natural limits of language, the conscious invention of a space, a spooky artificial no-man's land, between logical alternatives. I loved to debate both sides of any issue, but thinking about that strange space in between made me sweat. Paradox was one thing I hated more than psychiatrists and lady journalists.
The Public Burning is a novel written by Robert Coover. Released in 1977, it serves as a satire of McCarthyism and the Nixon administration and shows the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Characters[]
- Richard Nixon
- Julius Rosenberg
- Ethel Rosenberg
- Uncle Sam - a manifestation of the ugliness of America
- Pat Nixon
- Roy Cohn
- Betty Crocker
- Walter Winchell
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
rest to be added
Publisher's summary[]
A controversial best-seller in 1977, The Public Burning has since emerged as one of the most influential novels of our time. The first major work of contemporary fiction ever to use historical figures as characters, the novel reimagines the three fateful days in 1953 that culminated with the execution of alleged atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Vice-President Richard Nixon - the voraciously ambitious bad boy of the Eisenhower regime - is the dominant narrator in an enormous cast that includes Betty Crocker, Joe McCarthy, the Marx Brothers, Walter Winchell, Uncle Sam, his adversary The Phantom, and Time magazine incarnated as the National Poet Laureate. All of these and thousands more converge in Times Square for the carnivalesque auto-da-fé at which the Rosenbergs are put to death. And not a person present escapes implication in Cold War America's ruthless "public burning."
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Our Gang | Philip Roth | 1971 | A similar satire of the Nixon administration |
| Vineland | Thomas Pynchon | 1990 | A somewhat similar satire of the American government |
| An American Dream | Norman Mailer | 1965 | A novel with similar themes |
| Watergate | Thomas Mallon | 2012 | Another novel featuring Richard Nixon as a character |
| Libra | Don DeLillo | 1988 | Another novel showing historical figures from around the same time as characters |
| Inside, Outside | Herman Wouk | 1985 | Another novel featuring Richard Nixon as a character |
| Good as Gold | Joseph Heller | 1979 | A political satire released around the same time |
| The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great | Henry Fielding | 1743 | A similar political satire |
Sources[]
- Goodreads
- Wikipedia
| Works of Robert Coover | ||
|
Early novels and novellas (1966-1991) | ||