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A Treacherous Secret Agent: How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
A world-renowned critic’s haunting and deeply researched account of the subversive acts of literary revenge performed during the Red Scare hearings of the 1950s
In the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy targeted actors, directors, singers, filmmakers, writers, and prominent scientists, accusing them of disloyalty, subversion, and treason against the United States of America. HUAC and McCarthyism ruined careers and lives. But something striking also happened during the the poems, plays, novels, and song lyrics cited in the witness testimony spoke back, offering uncanny counter-testimonies and remarkable acts of “poetic revenge.�
This book is an urgent, probing exploration of the HUAC, its attempts to bowdlerize and contort facts, and the voices that rose out of history to oppose and subsume it. Marjorie Garber shows how writers versed in the literary tropes of revenge appear in the William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, George Herbert, Francis Bellamy, and others. But the agent of revenge is not the author of the work; it is the work itself, with all its cultural power and relevance, spanning years or centuries.
In narrating the destructive history of the Red Scare, Garber powerfully illuminates the constructive force of literature in opposing political oppression.
In the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy targeted actors, directors, singers, filmmakers, writers, and prominent scientists, accusing them of disloyalty, subversion, and treason against the United States of America. HUAC and McCarthyism ruined careers and lives. But something striking also happened during the the poems, plays, novels, and song lyrics cited in the witness testimony spoke back, offering uncanny counter-testimonies and remarkable acts of “poetic revenge.�
This book is an urgent, probing exploration of the HUAC, its attempts to bowdlerize and contort facts, and the voices that rose out of history to oppose and subsume it. Marjorie Garber shows how writers versed in the literary tropes of revenge appear in the William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, George Herbert, Francis Bellamy, and others. But the agent of revenge is not the author of the work; it is the work itself, with all its cultural power and relevance, spanning years or centuries.
In narrating the destructive history of the Red Scare, Garber powerfully illuminates the constructive force of literature in opposing political oppression.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published March 24, 2026
About the author
Marjorie Garber
41 books82 followersMarjorie B. Garber (born June 11, 1944) is a professor at Harvard University and the author of a wide variety of books, most notably ones about William Shakespeare and aspects of popular culture including sexuality.
She wrote Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, a ground breaking theoretical work on transvestitism's contribution to culture. Other works include Sex and Real Estate:Why We Love Houses, Academic Instincts, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, Shakespeare After All, and Dog Love (which is not primarily about bestiality, except for one chapter titled "Sex and the Single Dog").
Her book Shakespeare After All (Pantheon, 2004) was chosen one of Newsweek's ten best nonfiction books of the year, and was awarded the 2005 Christian Gauss Book Award from Phi Beta Kappa.
She was educated at Swarthmore College (B.A., 1966; L.H.D., 2004) and Yale University (Ph.D., 1969).
(from Wikipedia)
She wrote Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, a ground breaking theoretical work on transvestitism's contribution to culture. Other works include Sex and Real Estate:Why We Love Houses, Academic Instincts, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, Shakespeare After All, and Dog Love (which is not primarily about bestiality, except for one chapter titled "Sex and the Single Dog").
Her book Shakespeare After All (Pantheon, 2004) was chosen one of Newsweek's ten best nonfiction books of the year, and was awarded the 2005 Christian Gauss Book Award from Phi Beta Kappa.
She was educated at Swarthmore College (B.A., 1966; L.H.D., 2004) and Yale University (Ph.D., 1969).
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 6, 2026
Although I'm not sure how accurate the subtitle is, the book is interesting and timely. I haven't read or seen Shakespeare's plays in decades but along with the delightful "Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent" by Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea, Garber is helping me to appreciate & understand Shakespeare. But mostly she makes clear some strong and unexpected ways to respond when the authoritarians demand we surrender our independent thinking and our morals in order to conform to their bigoted, narrow way of life.
Garber includes proponents of free Shakespeare in the Park (Central Park, NYC), Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson and others among the many witnesses brought before HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) or Sen. McCarthy's kangaroo court.
Among the photos is one of Woody Guthrie holding his guitar with a label "This Machine Kills Fascists." According to those in the current administration, despite the U.S. helping to defeat fascism in WWII, anyone who is antifascist now ("antifa") is a terrorist [https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheet...].
While we can call upon literature and songs from the past, we can also write our own. speak truth to power and take back our country.
Garber includes proponents of free Shakespeare in the Park (Central Park, NYC), Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson and others among the many witnesses brought before HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) or Sen. McCarthy's kangaroo court.
Among the photos is one of Woody Guthrie holding his guitar with a label "This Machine Kills Fascists." According to those in the current administration, despite the U.S. helping to defeat fascism in WWII, anyone who is antifascist now ("antifa") is a terrorist [https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheet...].
While we can call upon literature and songs from the past, we can also write our own. speak truth to power and take back our country.
June 21, 2026
A bit of a mixed bag but the Pledge of Allegiance and Paul Robeson chapters were worth the price of admission.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews