a heavily researched, fictionalized but imo very plausible story of lee harvey oswald and the kennedy assassination. i read White Noise last year and while i liked it it didn't really strike me, but this one knocked me off my feet.
oswald as a character is fascinating, the man who wants to be history, set apart his whole life, set a part his whole life. too foreign for america, too foreign for russia, angry, sly, clueless, motivations barely even known to himself. ruby as a kind of mirror image.
highly recommended
I read white noise years ago and found it kinda pretentiously written so it put me off his other work, this one sounds worth reading though..
this one is more prosaic than white noise but i thought the dialogue is a lot better written. the dialogue in white noise was the most annoying and pretentious part of it to me so it felt like a major improvement
Have you listened to the Blowback episode on JFK's assassination? Curious how the two track?
i have but not since it aired, back in 21 i think? so i've forgotten a lot of what they put forward other than the broad strokes of cia and cuban emigres being involved. in this book, it's similar but it's not the central leadership of the cia involved but a few guys who are mostly washed up and cast aside from the agency after bay of pigs, initially planning on intentionally missing the president, but as more and more people get involved the plot changes and takes on a life of its own. in that way i tend to think it's a bit more realistic (despite being fictional) because it requires fewer moving parts, fewer meetings in offices, it's more about people doing what the people above them want them to do despite never telling them or being told to do it, leaving less of a paper trail.
i haven't read any ellroys yet, but i've heard that's a good one. it's also about the kennedy assassination right?
DeLillo rocks - still need to finish Underworld, which is very, very, good, but also very, very, long.
