Libra.

Books like Libra published in 1988 in the genre of historical fiction, are problematic. The book is a classic about the Occult history of the JFK conspiracy. Oswald is brought to life sympathetically as a deranged loner serving in the US military, who is a communist and wants to defect to the USSR. He does this. Leaving the Marines with an honourable discharge despite many transgressions whilst serving. He then moves to Europe and arrives in Moscow on October 16th 1959.

He is then relocated to Minsk where he gets employed as a lathe operator in an electronics factory. He starts a relationship with a local woman. Ella German. He is maladjusted and unhappy and returns back to the USA. He is accompanied by Marina and also with their first child June. They set up home together in Dallas. It is 1962. He orders a gun from the mail and looks around for someone to shoot. The inner monologue in Oswalds head vibrates like a jar of wasps. The pressure of history powers his fists into Marinas face. He becomes a wife beater.

Nicholas Branch is another central character in the book. He is supposed to write an in depth report on the JFK assassination for the CIA but admits to not ever being able to find an ending to the twists and turns in the plot. 

Castro is implicated. Or rather his followers are. But then so are his enemies. Sam Giancana. The mob boss hiding out in New Orleans. All are somehow connected. This is where fiction needs to present facts. Wherever they might be?

I know people who dont read fiction because it's just making shit up. But with a case like this where facts never seem to go anywhere, you could ask?

What's the difference?

Another memorable character who always shows a glimpse of stocking in any account of the assassination plot is pilot, homosexual, CIA operative, former friend of Oswald's. David Ferrie. He's the guy with badly drawn eyebrows and a wig played by Joe Pesci in Oliver Stones 1991 film.

His bizarre appearance was due to recurring cancer. He was a rabid anti communist who was also a libertarian. This in itself would not be sufficient motive.

Delillo himself said this story has too many characters. Too many streams mingle creating a wild unknowable river.

Oswald was also himself a writer of fiction. And a prolific reader. Was he also a real work of fiction. A patsy? A pawn? A lackey? In the wrong place at the right time? A manipulated hypnotized agent of MKUltra. Now we know what this means. To be a tool in the states greater game. Maybe under the influence of mind altering drugs. Bombarded with imagery. Bombarded with love. Bombarded with indoctrination. Then it's all withdrawn and he'll do anything to get it back. Especially the love. Just a couple of shots from the window and history will be permanently altered somehow. Before the CIA laboratory takes over, the imagery from a TV set and cinema screen prepare the ground. Promising immortality without acting lessons. The catalyst for an event. 

Jack Ruby or Rubensteins story doesn't add up. He killed Oswald because he felt bad for Jackie. The owner of a strip club and formidable local gangster. 

Why would he care?

When my Father was in the Navy in the sixties he visited Shanghai and had to take Maos little red book, whilst lying face down on the deck. I found the book years later, when we were in the loft of our family home, and he told me the story. I was impressed by the power such a little book had within its pages. To make unbelievers prostrate before its harmless appearance. It took me years before I finally acquired my own copy. I keep it with my rare books and comics. 

Communism, Zionism, The Mob, The CIA, Cuban Revolutionaries, LBJ, People in the Democratic Party of the USA. 

A delta in the river of truth all swirled up with thick brown mud.

Delillo makes the delta speak when truth and lies could be on one side of the same paradox.