Book Review

11/22/63 by Stephen King

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.

Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

courtesy Amazon/book content

I read a lot that King has written. Some I like (Salem's Lot, The Dead Zone, IT, Insomnia, The Stand) and some I don't (From a Buick 8, Desperation, Cell). This latest is definitely in the first category.

I'm a sucker for time travel stories and this one was well thought out and put together. The use of a stationary end point for a time machine (or tunnel in this case, or even better, stairway) isn't original, but King goes well past that minor point.

The problems with change in the timeline is dealt with as well as the emotional toll brought about by interacting with the past.

It was nice to see Derry again along with characters from IT. Derry is still the cesspool that King introduced us to in earlier works.

I especially enjoyed the latter stages of the novel when the mystery of the bum with outside the doorway is revealed.

There is no doubt though, this is King at his best with descriptive dialogue and exposition. 

This is a book that anyone should enjoy, not just a Stephen King fan.