11/22/63: A Novel

Stephen King

Nov 2011 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

One of the Ten Best Books of The New York Times Book Review
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Now a miniseries from Hulu starring James Franco

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 warmhearted 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-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.

Ratings and reviews

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Probably the best SK book I have ever read. I'll spare you the plot because you can read it anywhere online and give you my raw feed back. This book is one of those books that you cannot wait to get home from work to read. It was all I could do to not leave work home to sneak in 50 pages or so before the wife and kids came home. And that is what a novel should be. A little treasure you can reward yourself with after a long day. 11/22/63 is nearly perfect in my opinion: A fascinating subject, juicy plot, intense, solid character development, and terrific pace. I am not an expert in the JFK assassination field, just an interested passerby. This book reminded me of Da Vinci Code in that King took a real subject and intertwined a complex and fun fictional story. Do get this book if you have any interest in the JFK assassination and/or King as an author. Two thumbs up. A+, 10 out of 10, you get the picture.

The story was great. The idea of an English teacher as the unlikely time travelling hero is unique. But it's fairly obvious King grew a set of ovaries while he was writing this book, because in between the action and plot development is a nauseatingly sweet and predictable love story. Many readers found this love substory to be enjoyable, however I did not. The female lead is annoyingly insecure, and more often than not she simply feels like an obstacle the hero needs to put up with and work his way around.

About the author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.