But it is the knife-edge of familiarity that gives The Vixen’s retro setting its comic sting. This is all-too-recognizable and not the stuff of comedy. a dark comedy, an antic farce that works on several levels at once.

Or, in Ethel’s case, for typing them up for her brother. 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. At once domestic and political, contemporary and historic, funny and heart-breaking, the novel illuminates a period of history with eerily striking similarities to the current moment.The most surprising thing about The Vixen.is how laugh-aloud funny it is. It is the sort of work most needed right now.

THE VIXEN rewards its reader with an eminently satisfying conclusion. Gradually Simon realizes that the people around him are not what they seem, that everyone is keeping secrets, that ordinary events may conceal a diabolical plot – and yet, that these crises may steer him toward a brighter future. As deception abounds, as the confluence of sex, money, politics and power spirals out of Simon’s control, he must face what he’s lost by exchanging the safety of his parents’ apartment for the witty, whiskey-soaked orbit of his charismatic boss, the legendary Warren Landry. The assignment leads him in strange and sinister directions, his naivety often exploited by bad actors and power players.

“A rollicking trickster of a novel, wondrously funny and wickedly addictive,” lauds Maria Semple, Simon’s dilemma grows thornier when he meets The Vixen’s author, the beautiful, reckless, seductive Anya Partridge, ensconced in her opium-scented boudoir in a luxury Hudson River mental asylum. THE VIXEN is the latest novel from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose.

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