Read Me! 11/22/63: A NOVEL by Stephen King – Recommended Reading

Finally, it’s here. Seems like I’ve been waiting forever for the new Stephen King book.  Out today is 11/22/63: A Novel, King’s massive (960 pages) epic time travel story, about Jake Epping, a man who discovers a portal to the year 1958.  His friend Al, who just happens to have the portal in the storeroom of his diner, encourages Jake to go on a mission back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination.

Here’s the book description from Amazon: “On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.

Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.  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.  A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.”

If you’ve read this blog before, you know I am a huge Stephen King fan.  I recently waxed rhapsodic about his series The Dark Tower here.  I am happy to see him take on a more serious subject this time around, and paired with the time travel element, I expect this will be a great read. Now I just need to figure out a way to freeze time so I can read it…