A novel by Don DeLillo
Published by Viking, 1988, 456 pages. Jacket design by Neil
Stuart.
Paperback issued by Penguin, 1989. Many reissues since, some images
in the Libra cover gallery.
The 2006 Penguin editions of Libra (printing 22) include
a new five page introduction by DeLillo, entitled "Assassination
Aura." There are five numbered sections that discuss reverberations
of the assassination, such as the 1975 Ant Farm recreation in
Dealey Plaza ("The Eternal Frame"), along with new efforts
to scientifically determine the number of shots from a dictaphone
recording made that day.
Dedication: "to the boys at 607: Tony, Dick and Ron" (see the entry in Underworld Pt. 6 that relates to this dedication; I suspect they are cousins/friends from the early days in the Bronx)
The book that baseball fan George Will called "an act of literary vandalism and bad citizenship."(!?) Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1988.
"Will also said I blamed America for Lee Harvey Oswald. But I don't blame America for Lee Harvey Oswald, I blame America for George Will" --DeLillo to David Remnick, 1997.
What it's about:
A "work of imagination" which deals with Lee Harvey
Oswald and the assasination of John F. Kennedy.
Here's the original dust jacket copy.
First line:
"This was the year he rode the subway to the ends of the
city, two hundred miles of track."
What it's really about:
From DeCurtis: "I don't think Libra is a paranoid
book at all. I thinks it's a clear-sighted, reasonable piece of
work which takes into account the enormous paranoia which has
ensued from the assassination."
"We seek pattern in art that eludes us in natural experience.
This isn't to say that art has to be comforting; obviously, it
can be deeply disturbing. But nothing in Libra can begin
to approach the level of disquiet and dread characterized by the
assassination itself."
"Libra was Oswald's sign, and because Libra refers to the scales, it seemed appropriate to a man who harbored contradictions and who could tilt either way."
Added upon hearing of the passing of Norman Mailer on November 10, 2007 at the age of 84. From a New York Times blog entry on Oct. 18 on the initial issue of the Mailer Review.
From a May 1995 letter to Norman Mailer from Don DeLillo, after Mailer had sent him ćOswaldās Ghostä:
I donāt think Oswald would have walked a block and a half to shoot at Kennedy. The President had to come to him. As to whether there was a second shooter, the force of history right now seems to tend against, but that will change, and then will change again.
Weāre all stuck with this guy, you and I more than most, and when I look at the cover photo of the Neely Street house I feel an eerie and complex nostalgia for the time when I was following Leeās ghost in Dallas, Fort Worth and New Orleans.
Here is part of Mailerās reply:
· by God, hang around with the KGB long enough and you do get some inkling of how their minds operate · As for the second shooter, letās discuss that too. My mind is not closed on that either although, as you can see, I lean to Oswald alone.