An unparalleled work of historical conjecture,
ranging imaginatively over huge tracts of the American
popular consciousness, Don DeLillo's ''Libra'' contains
an introduction by the author in ''Penguin Modern
Classics''. In this powerful, eerily convincing
fictional speculation on the assassination of President
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 JFK will galvanize
the nation against Communism, the scales are irrevocably
tipped. Don DeLillo (b.1936) was born and raised in New
York City. ''Americana'' (1971), his first novel,
announced the arrival of a major literary talent, and
the novels that followed confirmed his reputation as one
of the most distinctive and compelling voices in
late-twentieth-century American fiction.DeLillo's comic
gifts come to the fore in ''White Noise'' (1985), which
won the National Book Award, ''Underworld'' (1997),
hailed by Martin Amis as 'the ascension of a great
writer', ''Cosmopolis'' (2003), adapted into a film by
David Cronenberg, due to be released later this year,
and ''Falling Man'' (2007), a novel about the
aftereffects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.
If you enjoyed ''Libra'', you might like DeLillo's
''Americana'', also available in ''Penguin Modern
Classics''. ''Don DeLillo's apocalyptic imagination
takes on the assassination of John F.
Kennedy...Breathtaking''. (''Newsday''). |
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