I recently finished reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I don’t read a lot of King’s books, as horror isn’t really my jam, but I wanted to read this book, because it deals with JFK’s assassination and time travel. It was really good. I listened to it on audiobook, so I will make comments on the narration as well.
Jake Epping is a school teacher. Once he reads an essay by the school janitor, who was viciously attacked by his family in 1958. Shortly afterwards, a local diner owner, Al Templeton, lets him in on a secret: in the diner’s pantry, there’s a portal that will take him back to a particular day in the fall of 1958. Al gets him to agree to a mission: go back in time and prevent the assassination of JFK.
Jake takes on the altar ego of George Amberson and heads back in time to complete this mission. Along the way, he tries to help out the janitor. I’ll leave the details of what happens for you to read, but the past tries to prevent him, he falls in love, and it’s not a particularly easy task. I’ll also leave the details about what happens when he returns to the present for you to find out.
One of the things I love about this book is King’s descriptions of the past. It was such a different time back then, without fears of coronavirus or people fighting on social media about petty crap. Jake Epping discovers that even the food tastes better back then. Of course, not everything was great, and King does delve lightly into that too. It was a time when wife beatings were common and black people were sent to substandard bathrooms and treated like crap, but for a white guy like Jake Epping, it wouldn’t have been such a bad time to visit. After reading 11/22/63, part of me wants to read more books from this era.
11/22/63 isn’t a horror story, but there is some violence. There’s also a fair amount of foul language, which is normal for King’s works. One of the things I did find interesting was that it referred to evens that happened in It. Although I’ve never read the book or have seen the movie, I looked up the details and I thought that was pretty cool that he tied the two books together like that.
The ending was really sweet. It had me in happy tears. It’s not a happily ever after (I’m not sure this kind of book could be), but the characters get closure that I would hope them to have.
The Audiobook
I listened to 11/22/63 on audiobook, so I’ll make a few comments about that. The narrator was great, and kept the voices separate. Towards the end, the narrator brought in a character from the beginning of the book, and I immediately knew who the character was, just from the voice. There is some Russian in this book, and a character with a German accent, and I thought he did a good job pronouncing the Russian and the accent. I was able to understand the Russian before King translated it, which is a point in his favor.
Final Thoughts
If you like history or are interested in the JFK assassination, I recommend 11/22/63. It was like Back to the Future in book form, with higher stakes. The descriptions of “the land of ago” were compelling. The main character’s story was interesting, the characters he ran into along the way were well-fleshed out, and it kept me hooked the whole time. I’ve been recommending it to my friends ever since I started reading it.
I watched the mini -series based on this book — it was pretty good, and I enjoyed it immensely. I kind of forgot it was a book too!
I heard there was a mini-series based on the book after I was already reading this. If you’ve watched it, then you know that it’s good :-).
I actually pre-ordered this book when it came out! I really liked it! The history aspect really intrigued me – it was crazy that the portal spit you out into a particular year and then he had to wait all that time until the assassination!
That’s awesome! I think the history aspect was one of my favorite parts too. It’d be awesome if a time machine like that actually did exist. Not to change history (that doesn’t work out well) but just to experience some of it!
I have been wanting to try more Stephen King books and more horror. But there does seem to be a bit of a misconception that all of his books are horror when they really aren’t! I don’t think I will start here as I do want to read some of his horror first, but I want to read this one at some point now too.
Olivia-Savannah Roach recently posted…My Top 10 Favourite Yoga Poses