There’s Lee’s mother Marguerite, forever begging for understanding: first from truant officers and social workers, then policemen and judges, and in the final analysis directly to the reader, to posterity itself. There are the disgruntled CIA operatives – Win Everett, Lawrence Parmenter, and T.J. Mackey – each harboring an almost religious hatred of Castro (and now Kennedy) after the botched Bay of Pigs invasion. There’s ex G-man Guy Banister, playing at detective in New Orleans alongside the strange, cancer-stricken shadow of David Ferrie. In Dallas there are silk-suited Mafiosi and the gorgeous train-wreck of a human being Jack Ruby, owner of the Carousel Club, where burlesque dancers like Baby LeGrand sleepwalk through boozy strip routines and dream of other, better lives.

And then there’s Lee, of course, the itinerant maladroit at the heart of the story. Sullen and awkward, in thrall to the Communist utopia promised in the writings of Marx and Engels, Lee Harvey Oswald cultivates “a far mean streak of independence brought on by neglect.” Abandoned by his father as a child, then raised in squalid, too-tight quarters with his mother Marguerite, Lee drops first out of school, then society, and finally America altogether – fleeing his post in the Army in a misguided attempt at emigrating to Russia.

Hovering over the narrative is Nicholas Branch, the CIA analyst assigned the Sisyphean task of piecing together the past, a job he quickly understands is an exercise in futility:

Unlike Branch, DeLillo isn’t cowed by the sheer volume of data surrounding the Kennedy assassination. He is making a serious effort at understanding the forces that converged on Dallas during the “seven seconds that broke the back of the American century.” He knows, though, that focusing too closely on the particulars – the who and what and where and when – might blind the reader to the more important question … the why behind the plot. Brief scenes hint at the specifics (which we are intimately familiar with, anyway), while carefully-crafted metaphor and distinct, quirky characterization breathe life into this cast of long-dead characters.

By highlighting the feelings over the facts, “Libra” offers the reader a sort of emotional catharsis which, in the final analysis, makes sense out of the whole mess.

Everyone here wants to be heard, to make some mark on history. “Happiness,” Lee writes, “is taking part in the struggle, where there is no borderline between one’s own personal world, and the world in general.” And yet they are often frustrated in their pursuits: dragged down by the drudgery of daily life, frustrated by careers gone awry, hobbled by addiction or pride or stupidity. And so they tell themselves stories – latching onto what might have been, wondering privately what might still be. Continually trying to reinvent themselves with narrative. Sometimes the gaps between these private desires and objective reality can be written off as ambition. Other times they’re sad, bordering on delusional. “But idealists,” muses a Russian KGB agent about Lee, “are unpredictable. They tend to be the ones who turn bitter overnight, deceived by the lies they’ve told themselves.”

This back and forth between observable fact and the private, intangible fictions we entertain – between what is and what might-have-been – is the narrative fuel propelling DeLillo’s plot. Into the space existing between make-believe and reality steps the conspiracy: to stage an assassination attempt on Kennedy – a “spectacular miss” – that will galvanize political support for another invasion of Cuba. Nobody knows all of the details, obscured by layers of bureaucracy and double-talk designed to protect the participants from accountability. “A man needed special experience and insight to work true meanings out of certain remarks … it was like a class project in the structure of reality.”

And like all plots, there is blood waiting for the reader in the end:

“Libra” illustrates the viral power of collective desire, the toxic effects that our narcissistic delusions can have once loosed in the real world. In it, DeLillo has captured an essential aspect of the American soul, introducing us to a cast – not of stoic, isolated killers – but of stubborn storytellers, dreaming big.

According to DeLillo’s logic, however, the yarns we tell tend to end in murder.

Killers, then. Once removed.

(This review was originally published at Zouch Magazine)

This review is one in a series for what I’m calling the The DIY MFA in Creative Writing.

Click here for the comprehensive listing of titles, and check back often for updates on other selections from the list.

There are a few things that jump out as I begin thinking about what to say.

1. One of them is the concept of Community: the hero leaves home, is engaged in an incredibly exciting adventure, gains magical powers or insight … and is then expected to return to the hum-drum routines of everyday life in order to share his magical powers with the local Community.
   • Joseph Campbell, the author of Hero With A Thousand Faces and the incredibly sharp guy who documented this mythological construct after reading and comparing thousands of texts, believes that a hero who refuses to share his mystical knowledge with the Community (a responsibility which can come at great personal expense to the hero), has failed to complete his heroic journey.
   • After all, what kind of a hero helps … himself? Imagine a Superman who only cared about winning the heart of Lois Lane. Or a Michael Clayton who took the bribe rather than expose the corruption in U-North.
2. The second concept also has to do with refusal: Refusal of the Call. The hero simply says “why bother?” and continues playing Guitar Hero while the world falls apart out his window.
   • Campbell writes: “Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless – even though, like King Minos, he may through titanic effort succeed in building an empire or renown. Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration.”
   • That’s a pretty dire prognosis. Refusal of the call results in the “future” hero never realizing his full potential, doomed to a life of failure and regret.

Campbell’s system tells us that the home is the center of the hero’s world: it’s where he spent his formative years, it’s why he fights and strives against supernatural forces, and it’s the place he desperately needs to return to complete the story. A healthy, fulfilling home life has more power over our hero – whether it be Superman, Michael Clayton, or Bilbo Baggins – than the evil forces against which he strives.

The kids in this 8th grade class attend a well-respected Dallas private school focusing on an international perspective to education. Every one of them can speak three languages or more (French, English and Spanish), and each will have more opportunities than many of their peers in the Dallas public school system. But only if they decide to accept a highly personal and challenging call to adventure, work hard to achieve it, and give something back to their friends, family or local community.

We milled around for awhile, touring the multi-level dance floors and checking out the pricey VIP rooms, equipped with flat screen TVs, red velour couches and large balconies overlooking Main street in downtown Dallas. I told Lisa we were “living a short story” right then – the atmosphere was so strange and comical, and the four of us were so obviously fish out of water in the loud neon blare of the place.

Around 10:30 people started showing up, and the scene reminded me of a Sadie Hawkins dance in grade school – everyone was in their 20’s or so (except for our group – all of us pushing or having broken past 40), but instead of getting their groove on the crowd stood expectantly around the disco ball brightness of the dance floor, waiting for something to happen. Finally, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, Lisa and I walked out onto the dance floor and started grooving.

And that was the tipping point – the entire place took our cue and erupted into hours of vapid, oversexed gyrating. At one point the go-go dancers came out with dollar bills stuffed into their skin-tight dance shorts, the word “S-E-X” spelled out in pink rhinestones on their butts in case we were somehow unable to receive the message being transmitted by the jiggling of their silicone-enhanced curves. I also vaguely remember a scene from the movie “You Got Served” being re-enacted, with a girl and guy performing an aggressive kind of mating ritual / dance-off right before our eyes, surrounded by a howling bunch of hooligans.

My right ear is still ringing from the booming drone of the house music, but knowing that we were able to show those young whippersnappers how to cut a rug made my month.