Libra (novel)

Libra (1988) is a novel written by Don DeLillo. It focuses on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and offers a speculative account of the events that shaped the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Related Topics:
1988 - Don DeLillo - Lee Harvey Oswald - John F. Kennedy

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A paperback edition is still in print. New York: Penguin USA, 1991 ISBN 0140156046

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The book takes the reader from Oswald's early days as a child, to his adolescent stint in the US Marine Corps, through his brief defection to the USSR and subsequent marriage to a Russian girl, and finally his return to the US and his role in the assassination of Kennedy.

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In DeLillo's version of events, the assassination attempt on Kennedy is in fact intended to fail; the plot is instigated by disgruntled former CIA operatives who see it as the only way to guide the government to war on Cuba.

Related Topics:
CIA - Cuba

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Oswald is portrayed as an odd outcast of a man, whose overtly communist political views cause him difficulties fitting in to American society. He is not portrayed sympathetically, nor is he castigated; he is treated fairly in the novel, yet is not a character easy to attach to. He loves his wife, yet beats her; he dotes on his children yet he mistreats his mother. He is not shown to be a madman with absurd ideologies, but well-read and intelligent. He is perhaps naive and unfortunately a pawn easily manipulated by others.

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Other characters are touched upon in the book, such as Win Everett, Lawrence Parmenter and Guy Banister, who are presented as the chief conspirators of the assassination plot. A parallel story follows Nicholas Branch, a CIA archivist of more recent times assigned the monumental task of piecing together the disparate fragments of Kennedy's death. Branch concludes that the effort will be neverending and the whole truth ultimately unknowable.

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The novel blends historical fact with fictional supposition. Real-life characters intermingle with DeLillo's own creations. In an author's note at the close of the book, DeLillo writes that he has "made no attempt to furnish factual answers to any questions raised by the assassination."

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