Random Things Tours: The Vixen by Francine Prose

´Sartre says our country is sick with fear´.

Simon Putnam, a young student of literature, graduate in Folklore and Mythology is in the middle of a publishing crisis which involves a CIA shadow war in the ´Red Witch-hunt´ America. A novel by a glamorously photogenic divalike unknown writer with the title The Vixen, the Patriot and the Fanatic promises to save a dying publishing house. 

The story he is supposed to edit is based on the tragical story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, sent to the electric chair for supposed spy activity on behalf of the Soviets portrays Ethel as a seductress whose sexual achievements are aimed at saving the fate of the American Communist Party. But his mother knew Ethel personally, and he has his own thoughts about the whole story. But perception is everything and it is important for the political narrative to perpetrate this terrible image of a traitor, as both a woman and a Jewess. 

There are so many intelligent layers of this fantastic book. Reading it - slowly first, a bit faster only to come back again to some paragraphs and even full chapters - I felt the magic of the literary journey that the likes of Paul Auster promises. Lately, it was The Last Book of Adana Moreau who made me at least as happier as Auster´s books. It has to do with the story within the story, a book which is in fact the main character of the main book. For me, it gives hope and projects expectations for the power that the written word and books in general still have on human lives and destinies. Giving life and consistency to literary characters, beyond the power of the writer requires magic writing, for sure.

But besides the strong literary inter-textuality, The Vixen (the word refers to ´a female fox´ but also, by extension,  ´a sprinted or fierced woman´ by Francine Prose is inquisitive about the dynamics of the much-blamed (for many serious reasons) publishing industry and its game of inequalities in favor of the priviledged ones (which are rarely non-white, women or belonging to minority groups). But the publishing industry and the books we are offered to read are part of a much bigger reality. A realm where lies are an anthropological artifact. ´Lying seemed unavoidable: social lies, little lies, lies of omission and misdirection´. You have them all, in just a modest sentence. 

The fiction, the historical fiction, the novels and the media do align sometimes in a game which may be articulated from outside the narrative. As we are talking the 1950s in America and the fear of a nuclear war at the gates of America, nothing was fully innocent. Not the soft power dispatched overseas - not bad to have all the jazz and movies rolling over in the post-war Europe, but this was not innocent either - not the military power aimed to strengthen the allies against the Reds. If I would have live at the time, would have been for sure a dedicated star-and-stripes supporter, but I am convinced that the fate of the Rosenberg was a grotesque simulacrum. But you need a lot of strength and information and convinction to cope with the everyday acting game.

Simon Putnam is searching for the truth about the manuscript and it comes to naturally as one may expect from someone who took a ´Mermaid and Talking Reindeer´ class. ´Narrative turns on those moments: The shock of finding out, the quickened heartbeat when the truth rips the mask off a lie. The friend who is our enemy, the confidant revealed as a spy (...) They delight the child inside us, the child who wants to hear a story that turns in a startling direction´. And he did well and did found out where the story was heading, but this was not the end. Simon´s life went on and entered the ordinary human routine. This is what usually humans do, no matter how gifted they are, they survive even the hardest knock of having meet a genius. Survival is always stronger than the search for the truth. This is what most probably happened in the Rosenberg case. They were supposed to offer an example to settle the Red vs. Freedom narrative when actually things were not so clear. Definitely, it was better to not deal with the Soviets, but should a Jewish woman - the only American woman killed by the US Government for a crime other than murder - pay the ideological price tag for it?

The Vixen is a novel with a geometry-like construction of the narrative. It has humour and intellectual irony and opens up moral fields of discussion which covers not only political topics but editorial - writing-related - subjects as well. Like, for instance, should ambition be stronger than conscience? Should the search for the truth - in fiction - undo the aspiration to success and recognition? Actually, should fiction be the ultimate goal of writing, even if there is a topic that once had its own life and reality?

All those questions and the story-within-the-story and the beautiful writing are the reasons why I am so in love with this book. Also, the cover deserves a mention: the last picture of Ethel and Julius before being set to the electric chair, a passion shared nonchalantly in the front of the cameras, that was brought to us in the many colours of our distorted or diluted perception.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered part of the blog tour, but the opinions are, as usual, my own.