What makes Libra so unsettling is DeLillo's ability to integrate literary criticism into the narrative, commenting throughout on the nature and conventions of fiction itself without disturbing the flow of his story.

The novel bears dissection on many levels, but is, taken whole, a seamless, brilliant work of compelling fiction. government has plotted to invade Cuba, and there are CIA agents who want retribution against President Kennedy for his halfhearted support of the Bay of Pigs operation there are Cubans plotting revenge on JFK for the same reason and for, they fear, his plot to forge a rapprochement with Castro there is a lone gunman, Oswald, who is conspired upon by history and circumstance, and who himself plots against the status quo.

The plot of the novel is history itselfand history, here, is a system of plots and conspiracies: the U.S.

DeLillo's ninth novel takes its title from Lee Harvey Oswald's zodiac sign, the sign of ``balance.'' And, as in all his fiction ( Running Dog, The Names, White Noise ), DeLillo's perfectly realized aim is to balance plot, theme and structure so that the novel he builds around Oswald (an unlikely and disturbingly sympathetic protagonist) provokes the reader with its clever use of history, its dramatic pacing and its immaculate and detailed construction.

Libra by Don DeLillo