Libra, Don DeLillo, 1988

This is a very big book!  The topic is large and without clear boundaries—-the Kennedy assassination of 1963—and DeLillo goes beyond those boundaries.  He takes the facts and the timelines and he creates a fictional account of how it might have happened.  DeLillo spins a tale about a plot by CIA mavericks to create an anti-Castro wave of sentiment by having a failed assassination attempt on Kennedy with a trail of evidence and clues that leads back to Castro.  These plotters identify Oswald as the perfect foil to play the role of failed assassin—-the Oswald who was bullied and dropped out of school, dishonorably discharged from the Marines, rejected by Russia and Cuba, and unable to hold a job or support his family.  However, Oswald turns out to be a nearly perfect shot, and one of the 3 plotters turns out to be an anti-Castro zealot who turns the rage from the failed Bay of Pigs into a real assassination.  The Mafia, Jack Ruby, Oswald’s mother, wife, children, and brother are all there in this intricate, spell-binding story that leaves you even more confused about what really happened on November 22, 1963 than you were to begin with.  The title derives from Oswald’s astrological sign and from the notion that events may well be controlled by the stars, or at any rate, are not under our control.  A real tour-de-force of fictional craft.