SOURCE: Coover, Robert, and Larry McCaffery. “As Guilty as the Rest of Them: An Interview with Robert Coover.” Critique 42, no. 1 (fall 2000): 115–25.

In the following interview, Coover discusses the cultural impact of the Rosenberg trial and the creative process behind his writing of The Public Burning, as well as the potential of hypertext literature and the significance of film, dreams, and literary theory in his work.

[McCaffery]: Do you recall where you were on the night of June 19th, 1953—which is to say, the night the Rosenbergs were executed? What sort of an impact had the trial had on you at that point?

[Coover]: I was in Nebraska. It was the summer after university graduation, and I was doing odd jobs, waiting to be taken into the Navy, those being Korean War days. One of those jobs was driving a delivery truck for my Dad's newspaper through the back...