Review: Four Days In November
Vincent Bugliosi's Final Word on JFK Assassination
Lifetimes could (and probably have) been spent just reading the thousands of books dealing with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Prominent attorney, prosecutor and author Vincent Bugliosi's 2007 Four Days in November is the only one, however, that need be read. At least that's the consensus among many who've studied the case for decades.
Book Forms the Core Of an Even Longer Work
Four Days in November is actually the pared-down version of a much more extensive, million and a half word Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That 1,600+ page book has been called Bugliosi's "magnum opus." In order to make available a more readable "just the facts" version, Norton published the shorter version just following the release of the longer.
The difference between the two books (besides 1,100 pages and a CD-ROM with 1,000 pages of footnotes), is the fore and after story. As per its title, Four Days in November deals with the actual crime, while Reclaiming History looks not only at all that led up to the tragic event, but exposes and destroys the multitude of conspiracy theories that have arisen in the 45 years since.
For the reader who can do without the theories, Four Days in November, which forms the core of the longer work, will satisfy like no other book on the subject. All of the adjectives used to describe a dramatic story --compelling, gripping, tragic -- apply to Bugliosi's book. While readers will already be familiar with a good deal of what he presents here, the combination of new material and how it is presented makes this study hard to put down.
Book Proceeds Through Dallas Minute by Minute
Bugliosi drops the reader off in downtown Dallas at 630 a.m. on the morning of November 22nd, 1963, and proceeds minute by minute for the next four days, following each of the three primary characters --Kennedy, Oswald and Ruby-- throughout. With the detail of 20 years of research, the author convincingly evokes the atmosphere of first the elation and then the chaos of the city of Dallas with the eye of a film director.
Besides the freshly detailed account of the actual crime, among the more interesting things revealed in Four Days in November are the disturbing accounts of Jack Ruby's odd behavior over the weekend leading up to his own crime, and the even odder behavior of Oswald's mother Marguerite, much of which sheds light on Oswald's own psyche.
Conclusion: "Oswald Did It, and He Did It Alone"
The utter persuasiveness of Bugliosi's presentation leads to an unequivocable "Oswald did it, and he acted alone." The reader will conclude, as did the author, that this crime was solved within 2 hours of being committed.
Until now, Vincent Bugliosi has been best known as the lead prosecutor of Charles Manson and his "family" of followers, in the case of the 1969 Tate/LaBianca murders. His subsequent book, Helter Skelter, is the best-selling true crime book of all time, with more than 7 million copies sold.
It's hard to imagine outdoing that, but it seems Reclaiming History and its little brother Four Days in November will likely become his true masterpiece.
Bugliosi, Vincent. Four Days in November, 2007, W.W.Norton & Co. 634 pgs.
(ISBN # 978-0-393-33215-5)
JFK's Dallas Motorcade
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