Nicholas Branch and the Futility of Evidence


    In Libra’s plot, Nicholas Branch takes the role of a parallel character, who looks back on the main storyline we live through with Oswald and Everett, except he does it through artifacts and evidence. When we first meet him, Branch has been trying to write a secret history of JFK’s assassination for the CIA for over 15 years. As the reader moves through Lee Harvey Oswald’s life and Win Everett’s plan with the CIA, they watch the events leading up to the assassination unfold to create a narrative explanation for Oswald’s involvement in President Kennedy’s death. While the reader goes through these plots, they also get flashes of Nicholas Branch’s current state as he tries to understand the events by working backwards through evidence.


However, at the end of the book, while the reader finally comes to understand the story behind the assassination, Branch descends further into a hole of confusion, surrounded by piles upon piles of evidence, none of which reveals the truth to him. From the artifacts he is given (Oswald’s pubic hair, several conflicting eyewitness accounts, dental records, a piece of knotted string, etc..) he only grows more uncertain and overwhelmed by the mysterious story around JFK’s assassination. While reading Nicholas Branch’s sections, I began to notice a contrasting relationship between him and Don DeLillo, the author of Libra.

    While writing Libra, DeLillo had to go through a multitude of evidence to get the historical understanding he needed. I mean, he uses Marguerite’s testimony many times in the book, or at least paraphrases parts of it. To know what evidence Nicholas Branch is floundering in, DeLillo had to find that evidence himself. So, in many ways, Nicholas Branch and Don DeLillo are one and the same: they both are trying to find the story behind the JFK assassination, and both face mounds of evidence, oftentimes useless for determining the truth of its events. However, the two figures differ in their approach to history. While they both looked at the same evidence, DeLillo uses it to back up and integrate into his own explanation for the assassination. While he never uses fake evidence and adds real characters and events, he isn’t obsessed with discovering the absolute, uncontested truth behind JFK’s assassination and Oswald’s motivations. On the other hand, Nicholas Branch loses himself in his obsession with finding the exact story, which even with the abundance of evidence, there is truly no way to determine. This raises an interesting question: what is a ‘truthful history?’ Is there only one explanation or retelling of every event in human history, and if there is, how do you determine which explanation is the ‘right one’ among multiple? Or should history be approached in a DeLillo fashion, where evidence is not expected to reveal the truth, but instead used to create one’s own narrative? In that way, history and fiction would have little difference between them, but did they ever really? I suppose that is the whole premise of this class.

Comments

  1. Luke YouMay 27, 2022 at 7:41 AM

    I found the inclusion of Nicholas Branch's character really interesting. It really does feel as though he is the other side of Delillo. One is obsessed with discovering the complete truth, while the other has realized that it is impossible to come to the complete truth. I feel like I see my past self in Branch and my current self in Delillo. Both are definitely a part of me but at different times.

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  2. JeanaMay 28, 2022 at 9:05 AM

    You make a great point in this post -- I'd never thought about the parallels between Nicholas Branch and Don DeLillo himself. Both are privy to a large amount of evidence and details relating to the incident, but Branch goes crazy trying to figure out the truth behind the assassination, while DeLillo merely speculates and corroborates his speculations with evidence. Perhaps DeLillo's way of thinking is better, as it's become clear that figuring out what really happened is next to impossible. His "speculations," his "fiction," may be closer to history than we think.

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  3. Emma D.June 2, 2022 at 3:03 PM

    This is a really interesting analysis! I think the parallel you draw between Branch and Delillo as two writers of history with entirely different approaches makes a lot of sense, and I think the ambiguity you point out over whether Delillo's account of the assassination is "true" reflects a core issue we've been exploring this semester.

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