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Libra
by Don Delillo
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780140156041 
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Only 1 left in stock at $9.95!
Powells.com Staff Pick
The
Kennedy assassination is front and center in Libra, Don DeLillo's
fictionalized biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. There isn't a German loan word
big enough to fully describe Delillo's talent. Using basically the same cast of
characters that James Ellroy
does in The Cold Six Thousand, DeLillo comes to eerily similar and equally frightening conclusions. Both
put a fresh slant on a stale subject and both delve into the larger forces which
collude to make history. Its great to have two of my favorite writers tackle
the same subject.
Recommended by John McMahon
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
In this powerful, eerily convincing fictional speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.
A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.
Review:
"Don DeLillo's cold and brilliant novel begins with thirteen-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother — that American Medea, Marguerite — watching television in the Bronx....DeLillo flies by night, and enters, an exorcist, into rooms and dreams. In each room, he finds a secret and a coincidence, a loneliness and a connection, even a kind of theology...But language is DeLillo's plastique. Out of gnarled speech, funny, vulgar, gnomic, he composes stunning cantatas for the damned to sing. Libra is as choral as it's cinematic." John Leonard
Review:
"It's his best novel, because it goes right to the source — to Dallas in November, 1963, the primal scene of American paranoia....DeLillo's portrait of Oswald is unexpectedly touching. It's what gives Libra the full heat of feeling....For the first time, DeLillo's work has the incendiary concentration of great fiction: his writing about Oswald is a long fuse that seems to lead straight to the heart of things." Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker
Review:
"....[T]ragic and dramatic as are the catastrophes of the great classical tragedies, but with an entirely American twist." Charles McGrath, The New York Time Books of the Century
Review:
"Libra is, in fact, another conspiracy theory, although considerably more literate and entertaining than most....Given {his} preoccupations, it was probably inevitable...that DeLillo would get around to the assassination, that nexus of paranoia." Paul Gray, Time
Review:
"One is dazzled by the virtuosity of Libra's construction, by the pungency and ellipses of the dialogue, and by the descriptive brilliance with which the lowlife characters materialize before one's eyes....Libra should be read for the boldness of its enterprise, its unflagging liveliness of surface and pacing, the engaging idiosyncrasy of its style, and, above all, for its vision of an outlaw element in American life devoted to the well-oiled mechanism of sudden death." Robert Towers, The New York Review of Books
Synopsis:
On November 22, 1963, in the streets of Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald's path intersected with the President John F. Kennedy's and the world witnessed the terrifying explosion of America's dreams. In Libra Don DeLillo applies his masterful imagination to Kennedy's assassination and crestes eerily convincing speculation about one of America's most compelling mysteries.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
-
Christopher D Himes, October 7, 2008 (view all comments by Christopher D Himes)
A thoroughly gripping historical fiction. Delillo has pumped this overdone subject with fresh characters and a plot that seems much more plausible than any others I've encountered. Even though you know how it's going to end it keeps you on the edge of your reading chair waiting to see how it will all come together.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780140156041
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Penguin Books
- Author:
- Location:
- New York, N.Y., U.S.A. :
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Fiction
- Subject:
- American fiction (fictional works by one author)
- Subject:
- Presidents
- Subject:
- Historical fiction
- Subject:
- Assassins
- Subject:
- Biographical fiction
- Subject:
- Assassins -- United States -- Fiction.
- Subject:
- Literary
- Publication Date:
- May 1991
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Illustrations:
- Yes
- Pages:
- 480
- Dimensions:
- 7.74x5.06x.85 in. .69 lbs.
