Coover is an ambitious and gifted writer who has made the mistake of treating a distressing and important subject in a kind of surrealistic razzamatazz which rapidly becomes confusing and unreadable. [In The Public Burning] the Rosenbergs become part of a collective nightmare which blurs and dissolves like a crazy documentary….

His attempt to understand Nixon fails because he substitutes random sensations and swirling reminiscences for hard-headed analysis of a vulgar but fascinating political personality…. Although Coover tries to present Nixon in all his furtive contingency, he fails to understand his personality and without that psychological insight we are left with a miasma of disjointed phrases…. [It] is more in sorrow than in anger that I have to say that The Public Burning is a colossally mistaken attempt to understand the disturbing politics of America. (p. 78)

Tom Paulin, "Fantastic Eschatologies," in Encounter (© 1978 by Encounter Ltd.), Vol. LI, No...