Dear Great Book Guru, This weekend I’m getting together with friends and they have asked me to choose a book we can discuss after dinner and before dessert. I know they all like historical fiction and the 1950’s with its Cold War spycraft is a time they find fascinating. Suggestion? Seeking Spy Stories
Dear Seeking
Spy Stories, I recently read THE VIXEN by Francine Prose and I think your
friends will find this fictional take on the aftermath of the Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg’s trial fascinating. Simon
Putnam is a recent Harvard graduate who is somewhat adrift as he searches for
employment. Through connections with a
sinister uncle, he lands a job at a prestigious publishing house. His first
assignment is to edit a fictionalized biography of the recently executed
alleged spy Ethel Rosenberg. The writer has portrayed her as a sultry
seductress who entrapped men in an effort to undermine the country’s nuclear defense
force. Simon is appalled at the bad writing and the absurdity of the novel’s premise.
He is loath to challenge his bosses, but he is hiding important information:
his parents were friends of Ethel Rosenberg and he knows the real Ethel was
far, far different then this portrayal of her.
He struggles between loyalty to family and truth… and his need for a job
until he comes upon a startling solution.
This is a darkly comedic take on a very cruel time in American
history. Recommended!
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