It is April 1963, andĮverett has just begun to frame his plan for an ''electrifying event'' that will bring the anti-Castro movement back to life. man now semiretired, so-called, on account of his overzealousness in the matter of Cuba.

This is followed by our introduction to Win Everett, a C.I.A. Then there's a brief intermission: a glimpse into the book-filled, document-choked study of Nicholas Branch, who is writingĪ secret history of the assassination of President Kennedy. The book begins with Lee OswaldĪs a boy in the Bronx - a misfit, a chronic truant, sharing oppressively close quarters with his mother. For one thing, that herringbone plot line serves to make the most humdrum occurrence seem suddenly meaningful, laden with dark purpose. Other people have asked these questions before, of course, but never so provocatively. To shoulder the blame? And finally, what if they decided in the end that a successful attempt would be even more effective than an unsuccessful attempt? Kennedy's life that would implicate Castro supporters? And what if they seized upon Lee Harvey Oswald - a onetime defector to Russia, sole member of his own unauthorized branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee - as the man conspiracy? What if agency operatives, disgusted by the Bay of Pigs debacle and alarmed at signs of growing rapprochement between Kennedy and Castro, schemed to stage an unsuccessful attempt on DeLillo asks, the assassination was a C.I.A. Slant forward from distant sources to be channeled into a single moment in history: six seconds in Dallas on Nov. It is also his most complicated, with a dual slate of characters and a plot line that might be described as herringbone-shaped. These three subjects come together in ''Libra,'' his latest and richest novel. Certain preoccupations, however, tend to reassert themselves: the assassination of President Kennedy, the labyrinthine underworld of spies and terrorists and (most notably in ''White Noise,'' which won theĪmerican Book Award in 1985) the pervasive effect of the modern American news media. His central character may be a rock music star or a child math genius his setting may be a remote Aegean island or a college footballįield. $19.95.ĭon DeLillo has produced nine novels in the past 17 years, and by now his admirers have learned to expect almost anything. Section 7, Column 1 Book Review Deskīy ANNE TYLER Anne Tyler's 11th novel, ''Breathing Lessons,'' will be published in September. July 24, 1988, Sunday, Late City Final Edition

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