The Public Burning

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Public Burning is a 1977 novel by Robert Coover. It reconstructs the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, both convicted of espionage and accused of giving information on the US nuclear weapons program to the USSR. The novel's primary narrator and protagonist is Richard Nixon, the Vice President of the United States at the time.

The novel satirizes the Cold War politics of the 1950s by having politicians describe global Communism as "The Phantom," an impossibly evil enemy of the U.S. which must be defeated. In the same manner, the novel takes as part of its premise the idea that each President of the United States is actually the incarnation of Uncle Sam, and describes President Dwight D. Eisenhower not as he actually appeared but as if he had physically transformed into Uncle Sam, complete with Uncle Sam's trademark red-and-white pantaloons and white goatee. The Public Burning is also notable for its final scene, in which the President informs Nixon that he is a future incarnation of Uncle Sam and brutally sodomizes him, apparently in order to pass on the essence of Uncle Sam.