“As it turns out, Mailer comes close to solving the mystery [of Lee Harvey Oswald], but he never establishes the tragedy. Dreiser's tale was tragic and American because it happened every day. Oswald made only one notch in the calendar. It was meaningless; he just renamed an airport, violently.
…Oswald's life was not a cry of pain so much as a squawk for attention. He achieved geopolitical significance by the shortest possible route. He was not an example of post-modern absurdity but one of its messiahs: an inspiration to the glazed loner. He killed Kennedy not to impress Jodie Foster. He killed Kennedy to impress Clio - the muse of history.”

— Martin Amis

Review of Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery by Norman Mailer, p. 277
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)

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Martin Amis 136

Welsh novelist 1949

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Martin Amis 136

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