Libra – Don DeLillo, 1988 ★½

Conspiracy? Lone Gunman? Why Not Both?

If only every awful moment in history was as suited for fictionalization as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, with its strange characters, bizarre circumstances, and world-changing events.

Of course, many – perhaps even a majority – of Americans say that already happened with an outlandishly false and ridiculous piece of writing called the Warren Commission Report. In Libra, Don DeLillo dubs the Report “the Joycean Book of America…the novel in which nothing is left out.”

High Treason – Robert J. Groden & Harrison Edward Livingstone, 1989 ★

Who Shot John

Many books posit the idea of a high-level conspiracy in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, books with titles like Six Seconds In Dallas, Best Evidence, and Crossfire. High Treason is different in a way signaled by its title.

Controversy – William Manchester, 1976 ★★½

History Is His Story

Paul McCartney had a lyric in one of his early albums, Ram. “You took your lucky break and broke it in two…” 

I kept hearing it as I read through the title essay in this collection by the noted historian William Manchester.

Five Days In November – Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin, 2013 ★★★★

So Close and Yet So Far

Like a few professional athletes and pretty much nobody else I know of, Clint Hill’s worst day at work unfolded before an audience of millions and echoes across posterity.

No wonder he waited so long to write about it.

“Could I have reacted faster?” he wonders. “Run faster? For the rest of my life I will live with the overwhelming guilt that I was unable to get there in time.”

Case Closed – Gerald Posner, 1993 ★★★★

Mr. Oswald...in the Depository...with the Rifle

He is at the core of one of America's darkest mysteries, yet the case can be made that Lee Harvey Oswald isn't all that hard to understand.

He was a habitual outsider who carried with him big dreams but, like so many of us, lacked the gumption and/or talent to turn them into reality. He was hypersensitive yet prone to seeking out conflict, and capable of harboring resentments more than he was of holding a job.

Add to this more than a smattering of sociopathy inherited from a crazy mother and a resilient dash of Marxism, and you have the recipe for the man who killed the 35th President of the United States all by his lonesome.