Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

“For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”

                             - Stephen King, 11/22/63

   I am just old enough to remember how the world changed in 1989, when I watched people torn down the Berlin Wall on TV as an 8 year old. A month later, George H.W Bush met up with Mikhail Gorbachev and ended the Cold War. The world was going to become a better place. Since then, I have witnessed a few other moments that changed the world; Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1991, Nelson Mandela's release from the prison in 1994, the attacks at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and many many more. The long river of history is full of watershed moments, some good, some bad, but what would the world be like today, if some of those bad moments didn't happen in the past?

What if, JFK didn't die on November 22, 1963?

In 11/22/63, a quasi historical, time travel romance novel, prolific author Stephen King transported readers from the 21^th century world of iphone and broadband internet back to mid twentieth century, a world of root beer, Jazz music and swing dancing (lots of them), food without chemical preservatives, black and white TV, racial/gender inequity, Billy Graham, and the Cuban missile crisis. In 11/22/63, Stephen King takes his readers on an adventure to prevent the assassination of JFK. Let's take a deeper look at this book.

Synopsis:

The year was 2011, Jake Epping, age 35 and divorced, taught high-school English at Lisbon Fall, Maine. While Jake was grading essays of his GDE students, he was touched by an essay from the brain damaged school janitor. On the graduation day, Jake took the janitor to a local restaurant owned by his friend, Al Templeton, Al's Diner was well known for feeding customers with solid, meaty burgers at impossibly low prices. Soon, Al revealed his secret to Jake about a mysterious time traveling rift in the storage room of his restaurant. It is a rift that took its passengers back to 1958. Al enlisted Jake into a plan that is more than just traveling back in time to buy cheap meat. It was a plan that would change the fate of the world.. preventing the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963.

Jake agreed to carry out this mission. He went through the rift, back to 1958, living, waiting, and embracing the life of an average US citizen of the era. At the turn of 1960, other than tracking the whereabouts and the life of a certain troubled young man called Lee Harvey Oswald, Jake's life was good. Jake found friends and a sense of belonging in the town of Jodie, he also met and fell in love with a beautiful highshcool librarian called Saide Dunhill. Life was going well for Jake. However, as the date 11/22/1963 approached, Jake soon discovered, the past has a way of preventing itself from being changed. Should Jake succeed in his mission, what would be in store for the world in 2011?

What I think about this book:

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, and he proves why he is one of the greatest storytellers in modern American literature with 11/22/63. Everything about this book in masterfully crafted, and it is a truly amazing book. I had read some of Stephen King's books from The Dark Tower saga, and I have seen a few movie adaptations from Stephen King's literary works, such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, The Green Mile, IT, Carrie, Misery, Salem's Lot etc.., and I liked them all. While I cannot say this is the best book Stephen King has ever inked on white paper because I haven't read his other monumental works (such as The Stand and Under the Dome), but out of all stories spun by Stephen King that I have encountered in the past, 11/22/63 is my favorite.

At 700+ pages, 11/22/63 is a fat, hefty tome that appears to be a daunting task to read. This is not true, this book is an absolute blast to read. In this book, Stephen King provided colorful, vivid, and honest descriptions of life in the US in the 1950s. These lively descriptions appealed to all five senses of a reader with masterfully rendered sentences tinged with good humor, which flowed naturally to fill every page. They described the music, food, conversations, streets, buildings and the social atmosphere of the era, bringing an engaging reading experience. It was so realistic that you'd start wondering if the author has access to time travel himself.

This book scores big points on characterization. Every character appeared in this book, from the main characters to supporting characters, are memorable, interesting and believable. I really like the way the book portrayed Lee Harvey Oswald as a mentally disturbed, troubled young man with family problems, instead of just an impersonal villain with a name that appeared on the pages of history books or TV documentaries. The protagonist, Jake Epping, is someone the readers can relate to in this book. In the story, Jake is a hero who made mistakes every now and then, but that's ok, because he learn from them and he was generally brave and noble.

Stephen King also succeeded in creating the right amount of suspense and mysteries that will keep the readers turning the pages. I felt a real sense of danger for every character that made appearance in the story and I cared for them. When I was reading this book, I truly felt Jake's every step, and I was so eager to find out what was going to happen next. The main female protagonist, Sadie Dunhill, is bound to make a deep impression in readers' minds, her character is courageous, noble and loyal. Her relationship with Jake was genuine and heartwarming as they worked through difficulties in their relationship, like everything else in this book, it felt real. I am not a fan nor a reader of romance books, my favorite genre is epic/heroic fantasy books about sword swinging, death dealing barbarians, but in Stephen King's 11/22/63, I found myself moved by the beautiful love story between Sadie and Jake. I felt for them, and I wanted them to have a happy ending so badly. When I read the last two sentences in the closing chapter of the book, I smiled. Even after I put the book back on my shelve, I still kept on thinking about the love story between Jake and Sadie, and the numerous scenes of them dancing. 11/22/63 is a truly remarkable story.

This book also asked an interesting question: Would we really be better off, if certain bad things didn't happen in the past?

I speculate a lot of people on earth share some form of experience (be it collectively or individually), about bad things happened in the past. Then sometimes we all wonder, would I be better off if X didn't happen? Or, why did X happen, was there a purpose or a reason behind it? Unlike Jake, we don't have access to a time traveling rift to find the answer, but even in the story, changing the past doesn't always lead to a better future. Among the gulfs of uncertainty that is life, I suppose we can be pretty certain, that what we do now can influence the lives of people around us. Therefore, instead of getting stuck in the past, why don't we help each other, hold each others' hands like Jake and Sadie did, spur each other on, and together dance a good dance that ripples goodness into each others' lives? A dance in defiance of the dark. Because as Jake would say, dancing is life.

11/22/63 is one heck of an achievement in the genre of literary fictions. Highly recommended.

*Below is a book trailer for 11/22/63, from Hodder Books