11/22/63, Stephen King
Fast Facts
- 849 pages - perfect summer read (on Kindle - less heavy!)
- One of New York Times' 10 best books of 2011
- Book website is pretty cool, but inaccurate - the diner doesn't exist in 1958, where Jake lands, or in 1963
- Not always a fan of Stephen King, ages ago I'd enjoyed The Stand and Thinner and The Long Walk, although I just couldn't get through It and a number of his others - but I unequivocally loved 11/22/63
- Hulu tells me that you can watch James Franco in the lead role in its recent adaptation, which would be worth watching if it's half as good as the book
- Premise: a high school English teacher discovers a portal to the past, and time travels with the goal (among others) of saving JFK and changing the course of American history
A Reminder that Stephen King isn't Just a Commercial Success
With an author as prolific as Stephen King, readers might be dismissive on the grounds that high productivity can't possibly mean truly high quality. It had been so long since I'd read any Stephen King, after abandoning It partway through, that I was ready to put him in a James Patterson category of writers whose success was impressive, but whose work didn't really appeal to me.
After seeing 11/22/63 on the New York Times list, and reading Sarah Hepola's memoir, where she writes about King as the author who inspired her to become a writer, I decided to give it a shot. After the heaviness of When Breath Becomes Air, Blackout, and My Name is Lucy Barton, I was ready for something lighter.
What an incredible storyteller. High brow or not, this is such an entertaining novel - you'll be hooked immediately.
Tiny Plot Teaser
King's narrator is Jake Epping, an English teacher with an alcoholic ex-wife who frequents a suspect diner in his Texas hometown. Opportunity presents itself in the form of the diner's owner, Al, who contracts a mortal condition seemingly overnight, and urgently convinces Jake to use a portal in the diner pantry which will transport him to 1958.
Jake is convinced to spend significant time in the past in small part by loneliness and in large part by a desire for adventure and heroism.
Twin goals beckon: the chance to stop a heinous crime committed against one of Jake's students, and the chance to prevent the assassination of JFK and change the course of history.
Take Me Back!
The time travel - marked by the butterfly effect (of course) and King's rule that all of Jake's acts committed in the past are entirely erased with each new trip down the pantry - is a delight. And it's also a terror - particularly the section in the fictional town of Derry, Maine (it IS Stephen King, after all). I can't imagine a scarier place.
I certainly wished that, like protagonist Jake, I could go back in time and taste root beer the way it was meant to taste, buy quality merchandise for pennies, and drive Jake's beloved 1950's car. The nostalgia is so strong and colorfully evoked that even though I finished the book a few months ago, I still smile when I think about Jake's librarian romance, swing dancing, and school plays in small-town Jodie, Texas.
King revels, as you will, in the alternate history and imagining what Lee Harvey Oswald and his family would have been like, and how he could have been stopped. A historic episode that could feel tired from cultural saturation really feels bright, new, and exciting - highly recommended.
What an incredible storyteller. High brow or not, this is such an entertaining novel - you'll be hooked immediately.
Tiny Plot Teaser
King's narrator is Jake Epping, an English teacher with an alcoholic ex-wife who frequents a suspect diner in his Texas hometown. Opportunity presents itself in the form of the diner's owner, Al, who contracts a mortal condition seemingly overnight, and urgently convinces Jake to use a portal in the diner pantry which will transport him to 1958.
Jake is convinced to spend significant time in the past in small part by loneliness and in large part by a desire for adventure and heroism.
Twin goals beckon: the chance to stop a heinous crime committed against one of Jake's students, and the chance to prevent the assassination of JFK and change the course of history.
Take Me Back!
The time travel - marked by the butterfly effect (of course) and King's rule that all of Jake's acts committed in the past are entirely erased with each new trip down the pantry - is a delight. And it's also a terror - particularly the section in the fictional town of Derry, Maine (it IS Stephen King, after all). I can't imagine a scarier place.
I certainly wished that, like protagonist Jake, I could go back in time and taste root beer the way it was meant to taste, buy quality merchandise for pennies, and drive Jake's beloved 1950's car. The nostalgia is so strong and colorfully evoked that even though I finished the book a few months ago, I still smile when I think about Jake's librarian romance, swing dancing, and school plays in small-town Jodie, Texas.
King revels, as you will, in the alternate history and imagining what Lee Harvey Oswald and his family would have been like, and how he could have been stopped. A historic episode that could feel tired from cultural saturation really feels bright, new, and exciting - highly recommended.
