The biography of the Romanian writer Alexander Ivasiuc (1933–1977) can be perceived as contradictory: from 1956, he spent several years in notorious communist prisons. However, he subsequently managed to gain a foothold in the new system as a writer and publicist, eventually even becoming a cultural official. Did his imprisonment lead to a “successful” mental re-education? Literary critics have addressed this question, particularly in the light of the morally weak heroes in his novels. I make the case for classifying the novel as post-traumatic realism by using examples from previously uninterpreted scenes from the novel Vestibul, especially the protagonist’s inner narration of a childhood memory concerning a group of children who catch a squirrel and torture it to death. The novel provides clear indications of a writer who experienced and was profoundly affected by the unrestrained, ideologically motivated violence of the twentieth century.