Because Simon has a secret that, at the height of the Red Scare and the McCarthy hearings, he cannot reveal: his beloved mother was a childhood friend of Ethel Rosenberg's. But Simon's first assignment - editing The Vixen, the Patriot and the Fanatic, a lurid bodice-ripper improbably based on the recent trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a potboiler intended to shore up the firm's failing finances - makes him question the cost of admission. It's 1953, and Simon Putnam, a recent Harvard graduate newly hired by a distinguished New York publishing firm, has entered a glittering world of three-martini lunches, exclusive literary parties, and old-money aristocrats in exquisitely tailored suits, a far cry from his loving, middle-class Jewish family in Coney Island. Or, in Ethel’s case, for typing them up for her brother.Critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose returns with a dazzling new novel set in the glamorous world of 1950s New York publishing, the story of a young man tasked with editing a steamy bodice-ripper based on the recent trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg - an assignment that will reveal the true cost of entering that seductive, dangerous new world.
Prose deftly reminds us of a chapter from nearly 70 years ago, during the Red Menace hysteria, when the government could jail and kill a couple for passing on secrets to the Soviets. This novel also comes at a perfect time in American history, as hard-won voting rights are being suppressed and the fabric of democracy itself torn apart. Francine Prose’s higher purpose as a novelist is fully realized in this delicious coming-of-age story in which everyone is afraid, anyone can be accused, and disinformation runs rampant. the underlying heartbeat of The Vixen isn’t political so much as literary-a book within a book that keeps the narrative thrumming. And yet, this is also a book steeped in the warmth of Jewish family life, post–World War II. It is a testament to Prose’s mastery as a storyteller that what emerges is a penetrating look at the underside of comedy-namely, how the human condition can be so predictably cruel and paranoid.
The most surprising thing about The Vixen.is how laugh-aloud funny it is.
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