Book contents
- Don DeLillo In Context
- Don DeLillo In Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Context, Content, Conflict
- Part IPlaces
- Part IIHistory and Politics
- Chapter 5The Cold War
- Chapter 6The Kennedy Assassination
- Chapter 7Terrorism
- Chapter 8The Twenty-First Century
- Chapter 9Prescience
- Part IIIMedia and Pop Culture
- Part IVLiterary Contexts
- Part VMaterial Contexts
- Part VISocial and Cultural Constructions
- Part VIIWriting and Writers
- Further Reading
- Index
- References
Chapter 6 - The Kennedy Assassination
Paranoid Suspicions
from Part II - History and Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2022
Edited by
Book contents
- Don DeLillo In Context
- Don DeLillo In Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Context, Content, Conflict
- Part IPlaces
- Part IIHistory and Politics
- Chapter 5The Cold War
- Chapter 6The Kennedy Assassination
- Chapter 7Terrorism
- Chapter 8The Twenty-First Century
- Chapter 9Prescience
- Part IIIMedia and Pop Culture
- Part IVLiterary Contexts
- Part VMaterial Contexts
- Part VISocial and Cultural Constructions
- Part VIIWriting and Writers
- Further Reading
- Index
- References
Summary
The Kennedy assassination traumatized a nation, and the official investigation conducted by the Warren Commission (1963–64) contained discrepancies that invited conspiratorial speculation. Subsequent investigations by the Church Committee (1975–76) and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1976–79) raised questions regarding the covert activities of the CIA, particularly the enlistment of the Mafia to assassinate Castro, which reframed the entire Kennedy assassination. Skepticism regarding the findings of the Warren Commission and revelations from the Church Committee fueled a cultural paranoia that pervades the work of Don DeLillo, particularly in a run of novels from Players (1977) and Running Dog (1978) through The Names (1982) and Libra (1988). Deeply indebted to the findings of these three flawed investigations, DeLillo’s fictionalization of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, Libra, mines this paranoia, but also contextualizes the JFK assassination within an American social totality marked by contradictions and antagonisms. By exploring historical trauma in a way that calls into question official history, Libra represents an exemplary work of what Linda Hutcheon calls historiographic metafiction.
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- Don DeLillo In Context , pp. 58 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
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