Don’t let the headline fool you. It’s about a lot more than either time travel, the Kennedy Assassination or any other single thing. It’s about life, loss, change and human relationships. What makes it so brilliant is that all of these elements are bundled together into a book that will make you laugh, cry and think. And remember.
11/22/63 by Stephen King is so good it took my breath away. I’m not a Stephen King fan all the time, although several of his books and stories are among my favorite works of American fiction. I never have a problem with his writing. It goes from good to amazing, but his usual genre (horror) is not among my favorites.
This book is not horror. Although small sections of the book touch on it, they merely graze the edge of familiar King territory. He never dives into it. This is science fiction, as good an example of science fiction time travel as I’ve ever read and I’ve read pretty much every book in the genre. To say I’m a time travel junkie would not overstate it.
Stephen King does the genre proud. Beyond that, this book is beautiful. It is not merely well-written. It is eloquent, poetic, lyrical. I do not say this lightly. My husband, who is usually not a King fan — with the exception of his stories about baseball and the Red Sox – was dubious when I handed him the book and said “Read it. You’ll love it, I promise!” Typically, he makes faces and argues with me, but this time, he listened and read the book. Once he began, he couldn’t put it down. He read portions of it out loud because he felt they were so perfect they deserved to be read aloud, like poetry.
The plot is simple to describe, though enormously rich and complex in the telling. A writer determines to go back in time and prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His attempt and travels in time produce many repercussions both for him personally and for our world. The “Butterfly Effect” has never been better illustrated. Whether or not you usually like Stephen King, if you are a reader of science fiction and/or time travel, you owe yourself a trip through this wonderful book. Like many authors, King dodges the technical issues of time travel via the tried-and-true “hole in the time-space continuum” ploy to move his characters to a particular time and place. King does it well and makes it an interesting part of the journey.
Many, if not most readers apparently agree this is the best book King has written in many long years, perhaps the best since “The Stand” and in my opinion, better. Granted that this is a subjective statement, but I guarantee if you read this book, you will not be disappointed.
This is a master story-teller at the peak of his abilities: Stephen King with emotion, poetry, depth, beauty, intelligence and finally, without taking any cheap or easy ways out of the complexities he creates. An amazing book. If you are any kind of science fiction reader, it’s a must-read. And if you’re a history buff, it’s interesting alternate history.
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