11/22/63 is a fiction book following the life of Jake Epping, a high school teacher who teaches English and GED in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He gives his GED students an assignment to write about a day that changed their lives. One student, Harry Dunning, writes his paper about the night when his drunk father came home and did horrible things to the rest of his family, a story which Jake is affected by.
Later, he is asked to meet with an acquaintance named Al Templeton, the owner of a diner Jake eats at. He is confused, because while Al was healthy just the day before, now he is dying of lung cancer, without much time to live.
Al tells Jake to step into the pantry, where it turns out that there is a portal to Lisbon Falls in 1958. He goes through, explores the town and returns to 2011, where he discovers that the portal leads to the same day every time, and no matter how long he spends in the past, he will always come back into 2011 exactly two minutes later.
Al says that he wants to use the portal to go back in time and save John F. Kennedy, hoping it will change the world for the better. He had tried, but he was stopped by his lung cancer. Unable to achieve his goal, he asks Jake to do what he couldn’t.
Reluctantly, Jake goes back in time. He tries to save Harry Dunning’s family and a girl named Carolyn Poulin who was paralyzed by a hunter. Then he moves to Texas, where he starts a life under the alias George Amberson. He makes money off sports betting. He gets a job as an English teacher to give him something to do, and he falls in love with the librarian. He spies on Lee Harvey Oswald so he can finally save JFK. However, he finds that the past is “obdurate”, not wanting to be changed and doing what it can to hinder him. I do not want to spoil it any more.
I enjoyed reading this entire book. I was debating giving it 4 stars, but after further thought, I do think it is one of the best fiction books I have read recently. This is the first book in a while where I was genuinely captivated about what would happen next. I spent a whole day reading the last half of it.
I think in part I attribute that to the plot, having a vague idea of what would happen and knowing what was coming. But, I was also unsure of how it would play out, especially with the past trying to stop him, as the main character puts it. Another reason is because of how much detail this book goes into on seemingly every single thing - it paints a picture of the 1960s world so well that there had to have been either a lot of research or Stephen King’s own memories that went into this book.
However, with that comes its biggest strength and its biggest issue, the length - the version I read had 872 pages. While it was very impressive in that only one portion of the book felt dragged on or slow, I think a chunk of it could have been cut, and the length could definitely have been reduced.
With that being said, the excess substance really helps me imagine I am in the world that's being written about. It almost doesn't focus on any one thing, it is always either a blend of many genres or transitioning between them, and I think that helps it feel realistic. It focuses not only on the main JFK plot but also on Jake's life. Nothing feels convoluted or forced either; despite there being multiple different plots, it is very easy to follow.
Another benefit of the length is that it was used well to build up suspense and mystery. There were some plot points introduced near the beginning of the book that I thought would not be significant, I thought they would just come and go. However, as the book went on and they kept coming up in mysterious, but seemingly mundane ways, I became more and more curious about them.
The ending answered almost all the questions I had, which is something I like in books - I like it when endings are more straightforward. Open endings can be well executed, but usually all I really think is "there must be a canonical ending", I don't try thinking of my own. I do not think the ending of this book disappointed at all. It lived up to the suspense built earlier on, and was satisfying in that it wrapped up and tied together everything I had been wondering about.
Other than that, the storytelling and characters were other strengths of the book. As I said, despite the length, there were not too many truly boring moments, although it certainly was not fast paced. I was pleasantly surprised with how well executed the complex main character and his relationships were, along with the other characters too. Some of the major events were detailed in ways I could've gone without reading, but it wasn't too much of a problem and it was not anything traumatizing.
Overall, this book is long, maybe unnecessarily long. But while that can be a downside, I think that for most of the book, that length is justified. I do not often read books that are as descriptive as this one and really make me feel like I am in their world, too. Stephen King seems to make horror, which usually is not for me. However, even though this seems to be an exception (maybe you could call it horror, as I said it is a blend of everything), after reading this book I would say he is a master at his craft.
It is not a quick read, and some parts will not be for everyone, but I would recommend this book. I will say that it does not focus on “what if JFK survived” as much as the storyline. There also is not really a theme or lesson that will change your life, for me at least - the most important theme I can think of is the impact of your choices. The book is instead focused on a story. However, it still has an interesting premise with skillful execution and was interesting nearly the whole way through. While some of it could have been cut, I do not regret reading a single page.
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