The novel about the Russian spies caught in 2010 in Montclair, New Jersey, would open in the same way as practically every article about them: with a glossy still of life in a leafy suburb. The first chapter would be short, its lacquered narrative remarkable only for the impenetrability of its slick shell -- until the last paragraph of the last page when the finest fragment of the truth about what was going on would start to emerge. The back story -- how the spies were selected, hired, trained, relocated -- would unfold over the next few chapters by means of the stock exposition devices (writing in a journal, reminiscing to oneself, unjustified flashback, recounting a story to a small child, reliving the past with a friend) so by the middle of the book, the reader's knowledge would be current.

And then the second half of the book would mine the most fascinating territory in the realm of the spy novel: how do you hold onto an internal sense of who you are when it is at odds with your conduct? How do you prevent yourself from relating to or identifying with the culture that surrounds you? As the Telegraph reported after the fact, "Moscow appeared concerned that the Murphys might be embracing suburban life a little too enthusiastically. In 2009, there was a dispute over who should own their Montclair house, with the Murphys protesting that owning it was 'convenient' and a 'natural progression of our prolonged stay here' and should not be seen as any 'deviation from the original purpose of our mission.'" It is hard to argue with the idea that if you are trying to infiltrate American culture in any meaningful way, fully engaging with the ever-present trope of home ownership is a must. Consider this statement from a response piece by a NY Times editor who nearly bought the house next door to the Murphys: "We almost talked ourselves into it, but a subsequent visit convinced us that the house just wasn’t the one. We wanted a fourth bedroom for guests, the sloped backyard wasn’t fit for play and a tiny detail about the dining room that proved the last straw: the china cabinet wouldn’t fit. . . . Instead, we bought a bigger house nearby." Just who is putting on whom?

Instead of presenting the final scenes directly -- the dramatic entrance of the FBI into the dreamy neighborhood, the carefully staged hand-off on the Vienna air strip -- the last chapter would consist entirely of reaction shots. It would have to open with a string of headlines, perhaps even a full article excerpted from a local newspaper, followed by scenes of the neighbors coming together to discuss what had happened and make sense of it. Again from the Telegraph, "Mr. Fonkalsrud said: 'I'd rather have Russian spies as neighbours than a paedophile. The Murphys were true suburbanites. They seemed to genuinely love their kids and I think they probably enjoyed their American life here.'" Mr. Fonkalsrud's voice here is that of the liberal humanist, reminding us that even spies have families and the need for community and the innate god-given ability to enjoy soccer games and barbecues and deck chairs.

I guess that last sentence reveals the tension at the heart of my own view of the situation -- would my novel end on the tone of Thomas Friedman's op-ed? (Sample sentence: "Everything the Russians should want from us — the true source of our strength — doesn’t require a sleeper cell to penetrate. All it requires is a tourist guide to Washington, D.C., which you can buy for under $10.") Or would it be more like American Beauty? Would it be a celebration of American consumerist culture as infinitely irresistible? Or a satire of that culture's perpetual slide toward self-celebration?

In the last chapter, the narrative voice from the beginning would return, smooth and serene, but would likely seem sinister after such a systematic undermining of the possibility of serenity. It would be hard to fight the urge to lay the ground for a sequel, or at least to suggest that nothing is ever as it seems, but fight that urge I would because I don't think that's the moral of this story at all.

There would probably be a coda about the family's return to Russia -- brief and grim, a bluish gray departure from the golds and greens of the earlier chapters, it would contain only the barest suggestion of the many worlds that lie beyond our own.