Something core to most conspiracy theories is questioning he normality of an event. That being, is something that happened just a coincidence that isn't very unlikely, or does it have some aspect of abnormality to it and as such is of more importance. DeLillo plays around with this idea in several situations. The first time DeLillo brings something like this up is during a Nicholas Branch scene where he is looking at the deaths among those associated with Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby. DeLillo starts out the scene by writing, "Somewhere in his room of theories, in some notebook or folder, Nicholas Branch has a roster of the dead. A printout of the names of witnesses, informers, investigators, people linked to Lee H. Oswald, people linked to Jack Ruby, all conveniently and suggestively dead. In 1979 a House select committee determined there was nothing statistically abnormal about the death rate among those who were connected in some way to the events of November 22. Branch accepts this as an actuarial fact. He is writing a history, not a study of the ways in which people succumb to paranoia. There is endless suggestiveness." What this does is try to shut down the idea that there was anything strange about the death rates. I find that interesting because Libra is a conspiracy novel, so it shutting down something like that seems counter-intuitive. Still, DeLillo goes on supporting the fact that they weren't anything special by talking about the methods of killing and how they were completely unconnected. My question is, why would DeLillo, after showing how these killing are normal, go on to give details about each one, in a say similar to someone trying to make something of them would? And I think the reason he does so is to show how easily the human mind makes patterns and jumps into paranoia about certain things. Even after he explained that there wasn't anything statistically off, when I read the part where he describes several of the deaths, I can't help by be suspicious. My mind automatically makes the connections and says that there is something going on even though I know there isn't really.
DeLillo also brings up some coincidences during a scene with Lee and Ferries. During that scene he portrays the coincidences as exactly that, just coincidences, and shows how David Ferrie uses them to manipulate Lee. By doing this he is once again saying that these coincidences people point to aren't really all that odd, but at the same time is pointing out the coincidences as if to say, "still it seems like there us something strange about that doesn't it?" This once again shows how we really can't help connecting certain things.
