This week’s Book of the Week may be a book you’ve heard mentioned before over the last few months. It’s Stephen King’s latest novel, 11/22/63, and marks a first for me. Up until this book I had never read any Stephen King, never so much as added any of his work to my lengthy “Must Read” list. However, the story that Mr. King weaves and the pictures he paints in this novel left a lasting impression on me, which is why I’ve selected his latest for Big Shiny Robot’s Book of the Week.
11/22/63 begins of course by introducing us to our protagonist, Jake Epping – a 35-year old English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine. Recently divorced from his alcoholic wife, Epping is not an extraordinary man, but certainly an interesting one. He’s intelligent, resourceful, caring, and at times very charming. The book doesn’t take long before diving in to the time traveling aspect. Epping is approached by his long-time friend, Al, owner of a local diner, who divulges a secret he’s been keeping for years: In the store room of his diner is a portal that leads to 1958 Lisbon Falls, Maine.
From here this novel truly becomes nothing short of a page-turner. As Jake Epping takes his first steps into the past we find out that this portal takes him back to the exact same moment in time in 1958, every time – and if one steps back through the portal to the present, then back again to the past, all the changes one would have made on that previous trip are reset and you have only been gone 3 minutes in the present. After a brief trip to 1958 to have a milk shake at a local shop, Epping returns to the present completely convinced of this impossible portal and Al approaches him with a plan: To stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Al had been living in the past for 4 years (still, just 3 minutes in present time) attempting to do this, but had become ill with lung cancer and had to abandon his mission. After some convincing, and armed with all of Al’s notes of the past containing crucial information about Lee Harvey Oswald and a suitcase full of cash from some sports gambling, Epping takes on this task and steps through the portal to live in the past for the next 5 years and eventually stop the assassination of JFK.
For a good portion of this book we live in the late 50’s and early 60’s with Jake Epping, who takes on the false identity of George Amberson. Over the course of these 5 years, Epping has a sort of to-do list of things to accomplish in the past; stop the murder of the family of one of his students from his adult GED classes he teaches on the side in the present, prevent the paralyzation of a young girl at the hands of her own father in a hunting accident, and spend a great deal of time in the latter years spying on Oswald to find if he works alone in the assassination or if there was truly a second shooter. Epping finds himself more and more becoming his false identity of George Amberson, and as he settles into his life in the past makes some memorable friends and even falls in love with a local school teacher in Texas, Sadie Dunhill. But even as Jake Epping carves out a wonderful life for himself while keeping his true intentions and origins a secret, the past is obdurate, and is constantly trying to dispose of this virus from the present who his attempting to change the timeline. During his time in the past, Jake makes dangerous associations with shady bookies, must constantly face the past head-on as it fights back against the changes he’s trying to make, fight for the love of a woman he never expected to meet, find what connections the mysterious “Yellow Card Man” has to the past and present, and face extraordinary violence as he moves forward with his plans to stop the assassination of JFK to -in theory- make the present a much better place.
King paints an incredibly beautiful picture of a more simple time in America, capturing apple pie-eating Americana while keeping the story firmly planted in a believable setting in that among the romance that many have with this time in American history, there was also a lot of turmoil. As King pulls Jake Epping through his adventures in the past he creates a sense of suspense and mystery that only escalates as it moves forward, and even as our main character begins to find happiness in his new life in the past with the love of his life, there is constantly that voice in the back of your head reminding you that he doesn’t belong and the past is going to fight back to remove him from the equation to retain the timeline as it is.
I honestly can’t recommend 11/22/63 enough. Being that this is my first introduction to Stephen King’s writing, I can’t say how this stacks up to his other works, but I can tell you as someone who does a lot of reading across many different genres, this is a must read as far as I’m concerned.
You can pick up 11/22/63 by Stephen King over at Amazon.com!