11/22/63

I'm reading Stephen King's newest book 11/22/63--I've been reading it for several weeks and love it.  But this is a dense read. You know what I mean? It takes lots of stamina, lots of thinking, lots of connecting.

When movies are made of King's stories, he often appears in small, inconsequential parts. Little cameos.  I love to watch for him and see where he pops up. His books are often similar--especially this one. He throws in references and characters and settings from his other books.  Those references don't take away any enjoyment or understanding for those new to his books, but to those of us who've read them all, reading his books is like a treasure hunt. You must find the Easter eggs.

King creates his characters slowly and with care--even minor characters who would normally be overlooked and ignored. He creates worlds that require readers to suspend their disbelief and live vicariously through characters. He creates unbelievable situations and makes them so realistic, readers have to stop and remind themselves that's its all make believe.

11/22/63 is King at his finest.

Amazon.com review
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.