Books like The public burning by Robert Coover
Robert Coover’s ‘The Public Burning’ is an experimental work that merges fictional narrative with real historical personalities. It dramatizes the three days leading to the 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a pair of alleged atomic spies. The novel casts Vice‑President Richard Nixon as a chief narrator, surrounded by an eclectic cast that includes Betty Crocker, Senator Joe McCarthy, the Marx Brothers, Walter Winchell, the image of Uncle Sam, the enigmatic Phantom, and a personification of Time magazine as the National Poet Laureate. These characters and countless others converge in a theatrical, carnival‑like setting in Times Square, where the Rosenbergs are put to death. The story, rich in satirical and symbolic elements, offers a critical view of Cold War rhetoric and the mechanisms of public judgment.
First publish date: 1977
Genre: Historical Fiction/20th Century Historical Fiction
Authors: Robert Coover
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