Why did Leo love this book?
This book is simply phenomenal. I've always been a big fan of Mailer and I'm fascinated by JFK and that era of U.S. politics; the Cold War, espionage, conspiracy theories. Obviously there is an enormous cultural output about Kennedy and the Long Sixties, but this is unique. Mailer paints an entirely convincing canvas about Oswald and his bizarre and short life. Although supremely detailed and well researched, the book also has a kind of dreamlike quality, such is the weirdness and intensity of the tragic story it tells. Oswald's characterization is truly stranger than fiction - he has a distorted intelligence and drive, a deluded and impulsive personality, lashing out at what he perceives to be the weaknesses and limitations of others and of himself. I particularly appreciated how Mailer refuses to throw more fuel onto the conspiracy fire. Instead, he leaves any interpretations about the Kennedy murder up to…
3 authors picked Oswald's Tale as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
This work looks at the life of harvey Lee Oswald. In 1959 he defected to the Soviet Union and was sent to Minsk, where he was kept under constant KGB surveillance on the suspicion that he might be a CIA agent. In 1993 Norman Mailer spent six months in Minsk retracing Oswald's two and a half years in the USSR, interviewing Oswald's former friends and sweethearts. He obtained exclusive interviews with KGB officers and access to KGB surveillance reports. Mailer also provides an account of Oswald's disastrous childhood and of the events leading from his return to the US in…