Alan Glynn's latest novel is
Under the Night (US title:
Receptor). One of
eight notable fictional Nixons he tagged for CrimeReads:
The Public Burning, by Robert Coover
Coover’s novel was published in 1977, but it is an account of the events leading up to the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953, when Nixon was Eisenhower’s VP. The book is a carnivalesque phantasmagoria with a cast of thousands that is intercut with chapters that make up a sort of unfiltered prequel to [Nixon's memoir] Six Crises. Again, the madcap stuff tends to be unrelenting and can be tiresome, but it is the intriguing, hilarious, and, yes, moving chapters narrated by Nixon that make this novel worth seeking out. And that is what you’ll have to do, because The Public Burning, always described as “controversial,” has had a chequered history in terms of its availability.
Read about
another Nixon on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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