First published 1978
Vice President Richard Nixon watches America prepare for spectacle. The year is 1953, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg face execution as atomic spies. Nixon serves as chief narrator while the nation transforms their deaths into carnival. Times Square fills with thousands gathering for the public burning. Betty Crocker mingles with Joe McCarthy. The Marx Brothers appear alongside Walter Winchell. Uncle Sam battles his nemesis The Phantom while Time magazine takes the role of National Poet Laureate. Nixon observes it all, his ambition driving him through three crucial days. The Rosenbergs move toward their fate as America stages its Cold War theater. Every witness becomes complicit in the ritual. The execution approaches like a festival, mixing politics with entertainment. Nixon finds himself both observer and participant in his country's ruthless ceremony.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, political-thriller
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: political-intrigue, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Times Square, America
Period: 1953
653 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books
Content warnings: death, violence