First published in 1977, The Public Burning combines a dramatic representation of the last three days of the so-called “atomic spies”, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, with a satirical portrait of Richard Nixon. Bawdy, scatological, and devastating in its political and historical ruminations, it is Robert Coover’s best-known work, and considered by many to be both a comic and postmodernist masterpiece.
The novel stemmed from Coover’s belief in the mid-1960s that the executions of the Rosenbergs in 1953, which he considered “the watershed event for America”, had virtually disappeared from public consciousness (Bell 2000: 7). His original intention was to transform the executions into a piece …
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