On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King-who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer-takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away-a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning's father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life-like Harry's, like America's in 1963-turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession-to prevent the Kennedy assassination.
So begins Jake's new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there's Dunning business to conduct), to the warm-hearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stopping suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.
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I have never been what you'd call a crying man.
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(Simon & Schuster, 8 November 2011, hardback, 864 pages, bought from AmazonUK)
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I've read 11/22/63 once when it was published and have seen and loved the mini-series starring James Franco. My last re-read was before this book was released. I forgot how much I loved it until I started to read it again. I love novels about time travel. There's so much potential. One of the best bits of this book is when Jake in a trial to see how much changing the past can impact the present goes to Derry, Maine to prevent a tragedy. He arrives in Derry just as The Loser's Club from IT have stopped Pennywise and believe the nightmare is over. Jake spends time with Richie and Beverely from IT. As a lifelong King fan and the fact IT is my absolute favourite book of all time, this delights me. This is a doorstop of novel, utterly brilliant. I'd recommend this.
I am currently reading through the lists of books with some connection to The Dark Tower from Stephen King's own website, https://stephenking.com/darktower/connections/. According to this link the connections between The Dark Tower and 11/22/63 are:
- 19: The number nineteen is a magical number in The Dark Tower novels and the number is mentioned in 11/22/63
- 19 JUNE 1999: In Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, we learn that this is the day that Stephen King was hit by van near Lovell, Maine. In Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, it is the day that Jake Chambers and Stephen King save Stephen King's life. In 11/22/63, this is the date that the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor exploded
- DERRY, MAINE: Derry Maine, which is the setting for many Stephen King stories and novels including, 11/22/63 is mentioned in the Dark Tower novels
- TAKURO SPIRIT: In the Dark Tower novels V, VI, and VII, a Takuro Spirit is a type of car found in some of the alternate versions of America. In 11/22/63, Jake Epping also sees a Takuro Spirit
