Marina And Lee

“The single best book ever written on the Kennedy assassination” -- Thomas Mallon, author of Mrs. Paine's Garage: And the Murder of John F. Kennedy “It is not at all easy to describe the power of Marina and Lee . . . It is far better than any other book about Kennedy . . . Other books about the Kennedy assassination are all smoke and no fire. Marina and Lee burns.” —New York Times Book Review Marina and Lee is an indispensable account of one of America’s most traumatic events and a classic work of narrative history. In her meticulous—at times even moment by moment—account of Oswald’s progress toward the assassination of JFK, Priscilla Johnson McMillan takes us inside Oswald’s fevered mind and his manic marriage. Only a few weeks after the birth of their second child, Oswald’s wife, Marina, hears of Kennedy’s death and discovers that Lee's rifle is missing from the garage where it was stored. She knows that her husband has killed the President. McMillan came to the story with a unique knowledge of the two main characters. In the 1950s, she worked for Kennedy and had known him well for a time. Later, working in Moscow as a journalist, she interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald during his attempt to defect to the Soviet Union. When she heard his name again on November 22, 1963, she said, “My God! I know that boy!” Marina and Lee was written with the complete and exclusive cooperation of Oswald’s Russian-born wife, Marina Prusakova, whom McMillan debriefed for seven months in the immediate aftermath of the President’s assassination and her husband’s nationally televised execution at the hands of Jack Ruby. The truth is far more compelling, and unsettling, than the most imaginative conspiracy theory. Marina and Lee is a human drama that is outrageous, heartbreaking, tragic, fascinating—and real.

Nearly forty years have passed since Ruth Hyde Paine, a Quaker housewife in suburban Dallas, offered shelter and assistance to a young man named Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina. For nine months in 1963, Mrs. Paine was so deeply involved in the Oswalds’ lives that she eventually became one of the Warren Commission’s most important witnesses. Mrs. Paine’s Garage is the tragic story of a well-intentioned woman who found Oswald the job that put him six floors above Dealey Plaza—into which, on November 22, he fired a rifle he’d kept hidden inside Mrs. Paine’s house. But this is also a tale of survival and resiliency: the story of a devout, open-hearted woman who weathered a whirlwind of investigation, suspicion, and betrayal, and who refused to allow her enmeshment in the calamity of that November to crush her own life. Thomas Mallon gives us a disturbing account of generosity and secrets, of suppressed memories and tragic might-have-beens, of coincidences more eerie than conspiracy theory. His book is unlike any other work that has been published on the murder of President Kennedy.

Judyth Vary was once a promising science student who dreamed of finding a cure for cancer; this exposé is her account of how she strayed from a path of mainstream scholarship at the University of Florida to a life of espionage in New Orleans with Lee Harvey Oswald. In her narrative she offers extensive documentation on how she came to be a cancer expert at such a young age, the personalities who urged her to relocate to New Orleans, and what led to her involvement in the development of a biological weapon that Oswald was to smuggle into Cuba to eliminate Fidel Castro. Details on what she knew of Kennedy’s impending assassination, her conversations with Oswald as late as two days before the killing, and her belief that Oswald was a deep-cover intelligence agent who was framed for an assassination he was actually trying to prevent, are also revealed.

In perhaps his most important literary feat, Norman Mailer fashions an unprecedented portrait of one of the great villains—and enigmas—in United States history. Here is Lee Harvey Oswald—his family background, troubled marriage, controversial journey to Russia, and return to an “America [waiting] for him like an angry relative whose eyes glare in the heat.” Based on KGB and FBI transcripts, government reports, letters and diaries, and Mailer’s own international research, this is an epic account of a man whose cunning, duplicity, and self-invention were both at home in and at odds with the country he forever altered. Praise for Oswald’s Tale “America’s largest mystery has found its greatest interpreter.”—The Washington Post Book World “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance. . . . From the American master conjurer of dark and swirling purpose, a moving reflection.”—Robert Stone, The New York Review of Books “A narrative of tremendous energy and panache; the author at the top of his form.”—Christopher Hitchens, Financial Times “The performance of an author relishing the force and reach of his own acuity.”—Martin Amis, The Sunday Times (London) Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

What did Lee Harvey Oswald do in the 48 hours after he shot President John F. Kennedy? This riveting companion to the upcoming History Channel documentary follows Oswald in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, searching for the answers to the questions that have troubled America for a half century: Did he actually pull the trigger? Was he alone? And if so, why? Steven M. Gillon, Scholar-in-Residence at the History Channel, explores the possibility that Cuban intelligence officials may have encouraged Oswald to commit the crime and promised to help him escape. Gillon recreates in painstaking detail the long interrogation sessions and reveals that many of the police officers who witnessed the sessions were convinced that Oswald had received special training. He was simply too good at deflecting questions, too smart, too confident. With new information from recently declassified documents, and revealing photos and documents, these pages offer a refreshingly new and complicated portrait of the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

Pulitzer Prize Finalist: “By far the most lucid and compelling account . . . of what probably did happen in Dallas—and what almost certainly did not.” —The New York Times Book Review The Kennedy assassination has reverberated for five decades, with tales of secret plots, multiple killers, and government cabals often overshadowing the event itself. As Gerald Posner writes, “Fifty years after the assassination, the biggest casualty has been the truth.” In this first-ever digital edition of his classic work, updated with a special comment for the fiftieth anniversary, Posner lays to rest all of the convoluted conspiracy theories—concerning the mafia, a second shooter, and the CIA—that have obscured over the decades what really happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Drawing from official sources and dozens of interviews, and filled with powerful historical detail, Case Closed is a vivid and straightforward account that stands as one of the most authoritative books on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

From the author of White Noise (winner of the National Book Award) and The Silence, an eerily convincing fictional speculation on the events leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy In this powerful, unsettling novel, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped. A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.

"This is a 'must read' for anyone with an interest in the Kennedy assassination, its impact on the American political system, and the controversies that surrounded it then."- Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI) "Reading the words of this infamous man is more illuminating than a dozen volumes of analysis of his character. This book fills a definite niche in American history and is long overdue Holloway uses professionalism and competent knowledge of history to create an engaging biography of an enigmatic man."- Morgan Ann Adams, Charlotte Austin Review. "A breath of fresh air in the JFK assassination literature."- Judge Robert Finn, former FBI agent. Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John Kennedy, has remained a mystery for 45 years. Using Oswald's letters, speeches, radio interviews, brief autobiography, job/college applications, diary, book about Russia, and words according to those who knew him, the editor has fashioned his autobiography from childhood to death. Jack Ruby's testimony and lie detector test are included for readers to learn his motivation in killing Oswald. New materials such as papers given to President Clinton by Premier Boris Yeltsin and documents found in 2008 in the Dallas safe of District Attorney Henry Wade are included.