![]() ![]() The only problem for Simon is that the main character in all those steamy sex scenes is easily recognizable as Ethel Rosenberg. It’s a bodice-ripper that Landry hopes will sell millions and save the company from financial ruin. Simon’s task is to edit the manuscript in secret. (There’s only one Landry the second iteration of the name is for pretentiousness.) Simon is the slush pile reader, but one day Warren Landry comes by with a special manuscript: The Vixen, the the Patriot, and the Fanatic. ![]() ![]() With the help of his well-known cultural critic uncle Madison Putnam, Simon lands a low level editing job with a literary publisher: Landry, Landry, and Bartlett. ![]() Prose’s juxtaposition of their banal conversation and the horrific event is a brilliant piece of writing. In the opening prologue, Simon and his parents (who knew Ethel Rosenberg) are watching Ethel’s execution on TV in their Coney Island apartment. The novel’s set in1953: Joe McCarthy’s HUAC hearings are in full swing and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg have just been executed for passing secrets to the Russians. Poor, naïve Simon, just out of Harvard with a major in folklore and mythology, of all things. It’s not uncomfortable for the reader, just for the main character, Simon Putnam. Prose’s new novel is nested: several stories resting uncomfortably together. ![]()
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