Who killed JFK? What forces made the mind and actions of Lee Oswald? And what does it mean to be an agent of history or something called fate? DDSWTNP probe these and other big questions in multiple new episodes on Libra released over the coming month. June may be the time of Gemini, another sign of doubles in the Zodiac, but for us it’s a month for the balance scale, tipping one way or the other, with some Librans like Lee not balanced at all but (as David Ferrie puts it) “somewhat unsteady and impulsive . . . Poised to make the dangerous leap.” In Episode 25: Libra (1), we discuss where DeLillo began in the 1970s in his build-up to Libra, as far back as Americana and other early novels’ mentions of JFK, Oswald, the CIA, and the overwhelming Warren Report. We examine what makes DeLillo’s Oswald a great but frustrating character and a portal for new dimensions in the author’s examination of language, naming, and self-making. We ask what’s behind the clear shifts in style, tone, and humor DeLillo makes for this historical novel, as well as the power of his place/date chapter structure, the influence of existentialist fiction, and some alternate titles he considered. And we begin working our way through all the figures and ideas surrounding Oswald, from Marxist beliefs and CIA practices of “unknowing” to Cold War obsessions with the Bay of Pigs, life in the U.S.S.R., and a losing war in Vietnam that DeLillo and readers know is coming but his characters importantly don’t. Stay tuned in our Libra episodes to come for investigation of the Murray-like wit of David Ferrie, how DeLillo regards the lone gunman theory, the mysterious edits made to his “Author’s Note,” the theological musings of Nicholas Branch, and much more.