Nicholas Branch in Libra

        In Libra, Don DeLillo provides a fictional account of the events leading up to Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. He constructs a complicated plot that involves many more characters than Lee Harvey Oswald alone. However, interspersed between chapters focusing on Oswald and the deep state forces plotting to kill Kennedy, DeLillo weaves in a small storyline featuring Nicholas Branch. Branch is a retired CIA analyst who is hired to write the secret history of Kennedy’s assassination (15). He spends hours pouring over every detail and piece of evidence sent his way in an attempt to better understand what happened leading up to the infamous 6 seconds in Dallas. 


        Branch plays a subtle but important role throughout the book. Although DeLillo lays out a convincing conspiracy, his inclusion of Branch’s character acts as a reminder to readers that the story that’s being told about the assassination has been constructed around facts. Unlike the other characters, Branch’s narrative is a bit removed from the event the rest of the book is leading up to because it takes place a decade after the assassination (59-60). This distance between Branch and November 22, 1963 presents readers with the simple and perhaps more realistic perspective of Kennedy’s assassination–it’s impossible to know for sure what happened. 


        The events described in the book string facts together with fiction, something only Branch seems to understand as he tries to piece together the “real” history. While he reviews the mysterious deaths of people involved or related to Kennedy’s assassination, Branch notes that “there is enough mystery in the facts as we know them, enough of conspiracy, coincidence, loose ends, dead ends, multiple interpretations. There is no need to … invent the grand and masterful scheme, the plot that reaches flawlessly in a dozen directions” (58). Using Branch’s narrative, DeLillo calls attention to the unlikelihood of the story while allowing readers to appreciate how well thought out it is. At the same time, DeLillo also lets readers wonder why, if there can be a logical explanation that encompasses all the details and anomalies of the case, can’t it be the real history? Even as he submerges readers in a fictional world where a deep state pulls strings and calls the shots, DeLillo incorporates an alternative message that recognizes the continual ambiguity of the situation. 



Comments

  1. Bruce TangDecember 16, 2023 at 7:31 PM

    Hi Bonnie,
    Great post as always. DeLillo might be using Nicholas Branch to show the gaps of modernism's explanatory power. Branch struggles to create objective truth even though he has access to every possible fact. In the end, it is not Branch (the traditional "historian") who presents a narrative of the Kennedy assassination, but DeLillo, a fictional writer. I think Branch is included in Libra as a thought experiment and as a way to explain DeLillo's motivation for writing the book.

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  2. Luke FahnestockDecember 16, 2023 at 10:52 PM

    Great analysis Bonnie! I think the sub-narrative of Nicholas Branch's toil with the excessive and convoluted facts of JFK's assassination becomes even more interesting when viewed in the context of Branch's fictionality. The brief asides reacquainting readers with Branch seem like lapses back into reality but ultimately retain the same level of fictionality.

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  3. AlinaDecember 17, 2023 at 9:40 AM

    Great post! Through Branch's interwoven narrative, we can see that even though Branch has an ample amount of information, he struggles to weave together a true story of the assassination of JFK. Through the investigations of Branch, DeLillo forces the reader to think deeper about the theories and unanswered questions behind these pivotal events.

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  4. Miranda BurgosDecember 19, 2023 at 7:13 PM

    Hi Bonnie, great post! You make good points about Branch's role in the novel. His chapter sections give an interesting perspective that reminds you that the bulk of these characters aren't fictional. I also think it's interesting how most of the people involved with the case that he researches died within the next ten years. It's sort of ominous.

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  5. KralDecember 20, 2023 at 8:43 AM

    I think Branch calling out the unlikelihood of the story is another way DeLillo is using Branch as his surrogate in the story. Branch combs through every aspect of the assassination, much like a reader might expect DeLillo to have done in the process of writing Libra

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  6. MitchellDecember 20, 2023 at 1:09 PM

    I often think of Branch as a figure for DeLillo himself in the novel--sorting through reams of evidence, analyzing and contemplating character, contingency, coincidence, evidence, to put together a coherent narrative (at around the same time, in history, that DeLillo would have been writing this book). I picture him relating to Branch drowning under his sea of paper, wondering if the whole project is futile.

    But the big difference would be that in DeLillo's fictional premise of Branch's situation (which, how would we know there ISN'T a "secret CIA history of the assassination," if it's SECRET??), all of the fictional characters or "placeholders" that DeLillo invents are "historical" the same as any of the others. So we get accounts of the untimely and suspicious deaths of Everett or Raymo alongside historical accounts of untimely and suspicious deaths of Jack Ruby or David Ferrie. Within the novel's fiction, the extended archive of evidence includes DeLillo's fictional inventions--and thus we have reached peak postmodernist historiography, where there's no distinction between history and fiction.

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  7. Ansh SinghDecember 21, 2023 at 11:45 PM

    I personally like how DeLillo weaves this intricate tale about Kennedy's assassination, not just focusing on Oswald but also bringing in other characters. It adds layers of complexity to the plot. Branch also adds a cool twist to the book by looking into the assassination 10 years later. it forces readers to really questions the events and story pertaining to the assassination.

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  8. Maryalice KleinDecember 22, 2023 at 10:25 AM

    hey Bonnie, great post!! Nicholas Branch was a very interesting character to me as well, as he provided a very interesting contrast to the concrete story of the plotters and his eternal confusion on how the plot came together.

    ReplyDelete

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