Self pulled a switcheroo one sleepless night and decided to read Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy. Something about the prose, something about the hour, something about her mood -- she put aside Chris Offutt for later.

The past few days, she's been reading about idealistic young Ethel Rosenberg, and she hopes her heart doesn't break too much later, when Ethel is sentenced. It's bad enough reading about what a hard worker she was, how determined she was to be a good wife and mother, and how all her life she yearned for music and scrimped and saved to buy herself a piano.

Of Julius and Ethel, it is pretty clear that Ethel is probably more intelligent. Definitely, she's the one more rooted in family (as the woman usually is, even now). So when Julius gets flattered into passing on information to a Russian agent on p. 58, it is quite a gut punch.

Julius Rosenberg to his Russian "handler," Alexander Feklisov, who was four years Julius's senior, who'd "been working in New York since 1940":

  • "I know you may not be aware of it, but our meetings are among the happiest moments of all my life . . . I have a wonderful wife and son whom I adore but you are the only person who knows all my secrets and it's very important to be able to confide to someone."

Damn you, Julius Rosenberg and also damn you, Alexander Feklisov!