Fiction Pick of the Week: 11/22/63

11/22/63 by Stephen King 2011

This is a different kind of story for Stephen King, a time travel novel back to the pre-Kennedy assassination days of the late fifties and early sixties. Jack Epping is the thirty-five- year-old English teacher who steps into the world of George Amberson, a man from the future intent on stopping the Kennedy killing and changing the course of history.

King has done his research on the era. For someone who grew up in these days, it is a nostalgic trip back to the not-so-perfect good old days. Try explaining to your girlfriend, who is living in the pre-civil rights days, that where you come from “the Cold War is over and the President is a black man.” No wonder George/Jake is so reluctant to talk about his past.

What I liked best was the heart-racing suspense with events of which you know the ending, but now might change. Nothing would make you put this book down during George’s last minute charge up the six flights of the Texas School depository building. It is how we all wish, at the worst of times, life could be. I also enjoyed the tender love story of George and Sadie, so different from Jake’s real life story.

From the start, I could not imagine how this novel would end. In his afterword, the author reveals that his son suggested an alternative ending, which he then adopted. He chose a good one. I enjoyed this book cover to cover.