11/22/63

Stephen King touched on horror with It, tickled us with fantasy in Lisey's Story , emotionally stirred us with the apocalyptic The Stand, dealt with science fiction in Under the Dome, and now he challenges the great Harry Turtledove with this alternate history epic novel! Wow, is there any author more versatile than Stephen King? Maybe his next project is a Broadway play or musical! This man can write, and I'm a big fan. I could have read this 849 page novel in two or three days, but I wanted to savor it like a fine wine. Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this novel also contains a little of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine .

Everybody my age remembers where they were when JFK was assassinated. I recall being in the back of a pickup as a young Marine in Camp Lejeune returning from some minor detail when a sergeant came out of headquarters and to paraphrase said, "The President has been shot, and we are all on alert". If you had the opportunity to go back in time to save JFK's life, would you? What would you have to sacrifice to accomplish this paradoxical feat? If you achieved your goal and returned to the present time, what would have changed? Did he win reelection, and because of it, change politics as we know it? Is the world safer or in chaos? This is the premise of the story: what would happen if you stopped or killed Lee Harvey Oswald before he had the chance to assassinate JFK? This time travel theory is better known as the Butterfly effect, where a minor change in the past can cause major changes in the future.

The narrator of this novel is Jake Epping, a teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine. How strange is it for a Stephen King book to be set in Maine? Just Kidding. Anyway, he is called to Al Templeton's Diner, Jake's favorite eatery. Having recently seen Al, Jake is stunned to find the cook older and sick with lung cancer. He learns that Al has a mysterious time travel portal in his pantry! The year is 2011, but he discovers that Al has been in the past as long as four years although only two minutes have gone by in current time. Al tells Jake that when you go through the time portal, you come out in 9/9/1958! Al had the idea to stay there till 11/22/63 and stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK, but he got cancer and had to return to the present time. Now Al wants Jake to take his mission and go back in time and find out if Oswald acted alone and if he did, eliminate him.

As you would assume, Jake does go back to 9/9/1958 and starts a new life in the past. Jake finds new friends and surly enemies in his quest to track Oswald and his family. The characters he meets for the most part are lovable and memorable, such as, Deke Simmons, Ellen Dockerty, and the love of his life, Sadie Dunhill. Since he makes most of his money betting on sporting events that he already knows the results of, he meets menacing bookies and perilous New Orleans mobsters. The main problem he faces is the past itself. The past opposes Jake in his effort to stop Oswald because it is unfavorable for the future: the Butterfly effect in action. What happens as 11/22/63 approaches is stunning and sorrowful. Well done, Stephen King. I didn't see this ending coming! This was a highly delectable novel with a felicitous conclusion. I highly recommend this alternate history epic.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Stephen King states that the author of   Invasion of the Body Snatchers , Jack Finney, wrote the best time travel novel, Time and Again . Stephen King has written 49 novels and has sold over 350 million copies. While walking on the shoulder of Route five in Maine, King was struck from behind by a minivan on 6/19/99. During the frustration of recovering from his severe injuries, he almost gave up writing. Luckily for his many fans, he reconsidered.