Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery and over 140,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
45 used & new from $3.87

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Tell a Friend
Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery
 
See larger image
 
Start reading Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.
 
  

Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery (Paperback)

by Norman Mailer (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  (26 customer reviews)

List Price: $15.95
Price: $15.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

45 used & new available from $3.87
Also Available in: List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Kindle Edition (Kindle Book) $7.96
Hardcover (1st trade ed) 229 used & new from $0.06
Paperback 17 used & new from $2.99
Audio Cassette (Audiobook) 14 used & new from $2.81
 
   

Best Value

Buy Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery and get Barbary Shore at an additional 5% off Amazon.com's everyday low price.

Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery Barbary Shore Buy Together Today: $27.07


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Executioner's Song

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

4.1 out of 5 stars (77)  $12.24
The Gospel According to the Son: A Novel

The Gospel According to the Son: A Novel by Norman Mailer

3.5 out of 5 stars (70)  $11.16
The Castle in the Forest: A Novel

The Castle in the Forest: A Novel by Norman Mailer

3.4 out of 5 stars (64)  $11.53
The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History

The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History by Norman Mailer

3.8 out of 5 stars (20)  $15.00
Why Are We at War?

Why Are We at War? by Norman Mailer

3.4 out of 5 stars (24)  $7.99
Explore similar items : Books (42) Movies & TV (8)

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Mailer opines that Lee Harvey Oswald was a sincere Marxist, a nihilist and an inveterate liar who was motivated to assassinate John F. Kennedy in order to shake up the world, to create the conditions for a new kind of society superior to American capitalism or Soviet-style communism. Oswald, he suggests, was quite possibly the lone gunman, or at least may have thought he was?in Mailer's scenario, there may have been other assassins present, unbeknownst to Oswald, conspirators working for some other group. His unconvincing analysis emerges from a labyrinthine pastiche of KGB and FBI transcripts, recorded dialogues, speculations, Oswald's letters and diary excerpts, and government memos. Mailer interviewed Oswald's widow, Marina, and also spent months in Minsk interviewing Oswald's Russian acquaintances and co-workers as well as KGB officers. Pretentiously applying the novelistic techniques used to better effect in The Executioner's Song, Mailer ploddingly recreates Oswald's day-to-day existence in the Soviet Union, then in New Orleans and Dallas in the months leading up to Kennedy's assassination. He hypothesizes that Oswald was a provocateur playing a double-edged game with the U.S. and Russian intelligence communities to further his own self-styled mission. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Mailer here explores not only the mysteries surrounding the murder of JFK but those involving the personality of the alleged assassin, Oswald. Employing the same technique that was so successful in The Executioner's Song (1979), Mailer arranges a vivid mosaic of hundreds of moments in his subject's life, recalled by scores of people and interspersed with extracts from his diary and from various official documents. In doing so, he gives us the daily textures of Oswald's life as vividly as he did that of Gary Gilmore. This is an impressive artistic achievement that offers irresistable, hypnotic reading. A substantial contribution to Kennedy assassination literature, it is, like Armies of the Night (1968) and The Executioner's Song, an essential book for comprehending American life in the second half of the 20th century.
-?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details
  • Paperback: 848 pages
  • Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (June 25, 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345404378
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345404374
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: