Chris reviewed 11.22.63 by Stephen King
Review of '11.22.63' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I listened to the audio book of this and wow, it was long. 30 hours.
It was very engrossing however. Excellent story, and very nicely read.
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 …
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. ([source][1])
I listened to the audio book of this and wow, it was long. 30 hours.
It was very engrossing however. Excellent story, and very nicely read.
Immensely readable. Thoroughly recommended.
I rarely give out five stars, but Stephen King has outdone everything I've read this year. 11/22/63 is a fantastic time travel novel that brings an entirely new dimension to the genre. It's an everyman tale where there's no scientists or impossible technology. Just a simple man trying to make a difference. I do think the end dragged on just a little, but 11/22/63 ended in a great place not to lower its rating. Overall, a fantastic book and one I may revisit in the future.
Jake is a recently divorced high school teacher who finds himself time traveling to 1958. Fascinated by the chance to live his life in what feels like a much simpler time without mobile phones and the internet, Jake decides to live a life that transgresses all the normal rules. He makes his home in 1958, gets a job he enjoys, falls in love with the beautiful librarian and tries to live the ultimate American dream. But he is also obsessed with making the world right, most importantly trying to stop a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. But does Jake know just how much the world would change if he stops the Kennedy assassination?
I’ll be honest with you, I’ve not read much by Stephen King before, two books in fact (one of those was On Writing). I went into this book expecting a novel about time travel and the …
Jake is a recently divorced high school teacher who finds himself time traveling to 1958. Fascinated by the chance to live his life in what feels like a much simpler time without mobile phones and the internet, Jake decides to live a life that transgresses all the normal rules. He makes his home in 1958, gets a job he enjoys, falls in love with the beautiful librarian and tries to live the ultimate American dream. But he is also obsessed with making the world right, most importantly trying to stop a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. But does Jake know just how much the world would change if he stops the Kennedy assassination?
I’ll be honest with you, I’ve not read much by Stephen King before, two books in fact (one of those was On Writing). I went into this book expecting a novel about time travel and the effects of changing the past would have. I also expected some weird plot with supernatural or horror elements but that’s just what I expect from King. What I got was something a lot different; this was more of a “what if?” novel. King explores his own thoughts of alternate history and time travel but he doesn’t really stop with that.
Possibly the most unexpected part of this novel was the character building and living life in the late fifties and sixties. King does an interesting job at telling a story of living in the era but in his own unique way by making the protagonist feel out of his element. The whole idea of living life in a time you are not from and finding someone in that time that could possibly be your soul mate. That was not what I thought King would write about but he did a great job building a memorable story around what he wanted to talk about.
Sure, some people are going to want him to skip all the normal life stuff and get to the time travel and alternate history aspects but I found it enjoyable leading up to it. It’s no Mad Men with the characters and life in the sixties but I did enjoy reading it. It’s a huge book and it could have been trimmed but if I was the one to take out elements I probably would have taken out the time travel. Then the book wouldn’t have worked as well.
I’m very interested in that time period, but I would have either preferred a more Mad Men style novel or more noir style with the war on organised crime and those dodgy back door deals made by the FBI. It did end out being a very interesting novel; it definitely surpassed my expectations and turned into a good read. Stephen King is a good story teller but there was not much to love about the prose and style but overall it was worth the read.
This review originally appeared on my blog; literary-exploration.com/2012/11/21/book-review-112263/
This book certainly had flaws, but they were forgivable, as it was such an engaging read. It was a book I thought about when I wasn't reading it, and brought me fully into the protagonist's world.
I came to this book as a person who's read 9 or 10 of Stephen King's novels, but none written since the late 80s. So I'm not a die-hard fan, but I have enjoyed his work in the past.
I paid the extra 2 bucks for the "enhanced" e-book edition, which includes a 13 minute video about America in this era. It wasn't worth it. The video didn't add anything. But I was glad to be reading a digital version of the book, because I frequently consulted Wikipedia for information about some of the historic figures and incidents in the novel.
Given a chance to go back in time to before president Kennedy was shot, would you go back and try and save him?
That’s the predicament faced by mild mannered school teacher Jake Epping in 11.22.63 , who discovers that the local diner contains a portal back into 1958 America.
Nostalgia
King has done a wonderful job here in invoking a sense of nostalgia in me for a simpler time. Which is quite a feat given that he has me pining for a time before I was born. Perhaps he is aided by the cultural baggage associated with the Kennedy era that Hollywood is fond of exploiting and exporting.
A consummate weaver
The strength of this book lies in King’s complex layering of character and plot. On reflection, the consequences of meddling with time should be blatantly obvious to both the reader and the character but it’s King’s skill and …
Given a chance to go back in time to before president Kennedy was shot, would you go back and try and save him?
That’s the predicament faced by mild mannered school teacher Jake Epping in 11.22.63 , who discovers that the local diner contains a portal back into 1958 America.
Nostalgia
King has done a wonderful job here in invoking a sense of nostalgia in me for a simpler time. Which is quite a feat given that he has me pining for a time before I was born. Perhaps he is aided by the cultural baggage associated with the Kennedy era that Hollywood is fond of exploiting and exporting.
A consummate weaver
The strength of this book lies in King’s complex layering of character and plot. On reflection, the consequences of meddling with time should be blatantly obvious to both the reader and the character but it’s King’s skill and experience that shores up what would probably have fallen apart in the hands of another.
Neither Jake nor the reader are given the time to reflect on what meddling with time might do. King applies pressure from the outset - Al the owner of the diner where the portal is located, is dying and the lease can’t be renewed. So from the outset there’s time pressure.
The portal always links to 1958 and while returning through the portal to 1958 effectively erases all changes of previous visits, there’s a pressure to get things right first time as the time traveller still ages.
Initially this isn’t a problem, Jake runs a few “test missions”, altering the lives of people he knows who have had unfortunate life events. This is done to convince himself that it’s possible and to understand the forces he’s up against in a past that doesn’t want to be changed.
But preventing the Kennedy assassination is a five year mission, if he stuffs up Jake can have a “do over’ but he’s a 5 years older, with another 5 years to fight against an obdurate past.
Intricate plot details aside it’s the characters that really made this novel for me. So good was King’s portrayal of 60’s small Town Texas and the characters within, that I didn't care about Kennedy by about half way through the novel.
Herein lies another pressure - Jake falls in love with a woman and a town. Jake and the reader are torn between wanting the life he is living in small town Texas protected and completing his mission to save Kennedy.
A tireless romantic
This book rammed home to me how much of a romantic I am. I didn’t like the ending, but it’s true to the story. At a hefty 700+ pages this is a book to pace yourself on, to enjoy the alternate reality that King has created.
Not a fan of the Kennedy era? It really doesn’t matter, the lives and characters King creates are enough to sustain interest.
This book was provided to me by the publisher at no cost.