11:22:63 by Stephen King

 

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• The Blurb...

What if you could go back in time and change the course of history? What if the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless....

King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, 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.

With extraordinary imaginative power, King weaves the social, political and popular culture of his baby-boom American generation into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense.

• Our Review...

Stephen King's sojourn into Alternative Historical  Fiction is an interesting one. If you could change one thing in history what would it be? For many the answer would be to kill Adolph Hitler before he could change history and start the second world war for King it is to kill Lee Harvey Oswald or more precisely save John F Kennedy.

Our hero Jake is shown a portal back in time to 1958. Five years before that fatal assassination. There is no real scientific explanation as to what this portal is and how it would have been created. It just is. There are a few botched attempts where we learn about the nature of time and how actions can create and alter timelines, often not in the way our protagonist intended. Eventually our hero settles into his task of tracking Oswald and checking if there was a conspiracy or was he just lone gunman.

There are subtle references to King's earlier work "IT!" but if you have not read it, this will not affect your enjoyment. However while in his undercover guise of high school teacher Jake falls in love creating a myriad of problems with the time ticking away to the fateful moment, he ends up battling time itself.

This is not a book for the light reader. It is a hefty tome weighing at 800+ pages. It is densely plotted in the fairly complicated backdrop of American politics of the 50s and 60s. It is very "American," which I suppose is very obvious given the subject and title.

I chose this book because like many of my generation Stephen King was the catalyst that kick started my reading habit, with blistering greats like Carrie, Misery, The Shining, The Dead Zone. King  has been extremely proficient over years, producing a multitude of books. However with so many titles being pumped out, quality may not keep pace with quantity. While I enjoyed this book, I don't think it's up there with his best, yet there again nothing is. While he can still occasionally turn a wonderfully succinct phrase that can encapsulate an occasion or an emotion (see selected quotes), the narrative as a whole can be a bit of a slog.

Perhaps it's a case of rose tinted nostalgia or familiarity breeding a little bit of not contempt, more a feeling of being unsatiated. When you have your first hit of an early King novel it is a fantastic reading experience but you can never replicate the first time and you end up chasing the high. Don't get me wrong this is not a poor book. The thing is Stephen King's mediocre is everyone else's good.

• Selected Quotes...

But never underestimate the American bourgeoisie’s capacity to embrace fascism under the name of populism. Or the power of television.

But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.

Time is a tree with many branches.’

But stupidity is one of two things we see most clearly in retrospect. The other is missed chances.

If you saw a spider scuttering across the floor toward your baby’s crib, you might hesitate. You might even consider trapping it in a bottle and putting it out in the yard so it could go on living its little life. But if you were sure that spider was poisonous? A black widow? In that case, you wouldn’t hesitate. Not if you were sane. You’d put your foot on it and crush it.

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• About The Author...

Stephen King was born September 21, 1947 in the United States, namely in the city of Portland, Maine. He was born literally by a lucky chance, because his mother, Nelly Ruth Pillsbury, was diagnosed with infertility, and in 1945 he and her husband, Donald Edward King, adopted a child - David Victor. And two years later, Stephen was born, despite the terrible forecasts of doctors. When he was two years old, his father left the family, and the mother with two children was left alone. King recalls his childhood with sadness, because they lived very hard, he and his brother and mother did not know any excesses and indulgence. Stephen remained in first grade in his second year due to an ear disease that did not respond to antibiotic treatment, and he suffered hellish pain when he visited the otolaryngologist.

As a child, Stephen King was fond of reading books and comics about superheroes, horror films, in general, he liked to tickle his nerves with frightening stories. His mother actively supported this hobby. She even made up a whole fantastic story to explain the disappearance of her father when he left the family for a waitress from a neighboring state. According to her, the man was taken by aliens from Mars.

In the spring of 1962, Stephen graduated from eighth grade and went to Lisbon High School. There, the guy was appointed the chief editor of the school newspaper "Drum", which under his patronage turned into an annual, but in parallel with this, King wrote several stories about teachers using black humor. Then Stephen went to college. In parallel with this, he earned extra money. In August 1966, he went to Orono, enrolling at the University of Maine at the Department of English Literature, as well as at teacher training courses at the college. At the University, he met his future wife - Tabitha Spruce. During his training, Stephen published essay reviews some stories and at the end left a memory of himself among teachers and students. In 1970, King graduated from the undergraduate university and was deemed unfit for military service due to a long-standing hearing problem.

His first "best seller" was a novel written on the basis of the movie "The Well and the Pendulum." The guy printed his work in the amount of 40 copies on a hectograph.

In 1959, 18-year-old Stephen King, along with his brother David, began to publish an informational bulletin, which was called "Dave's Leaflet". In the late 1970s, Stephen King worked under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Some biographers of the writer argue that the publication of books under an assumed name was dictated by the insecurity of the novelist. It seemed to him that the success achieved was accidental. Repeating it under a different name, King wanted to verify the opposite. Under the pseudonym Richard Bachmann, the book Fury was published. But King took it out of sale after a novel was discovered by a juvenile delinquent who shot his classmates in Kansas. Richard Bachman's name appeared under King's several more novels: “A Long Walk”, “Road Works”, “Running Man” and “Losing Weight” ". In the 1980s and 90s, the best books by Stephen King appeared. First of all, this is the shooter novel, which became the first in the Dark Tower series. In the same 1982, in a record 10 days, he wrote a 300-page novel, The Running Man.In 1996, the book The Green Mile was born. This is one of Stephen King's most beloved novels. A year later, the writer signed a contract with Simon & Schuster, In 2002, Stephen King upset his fans with the news that he was ending his writing career. It is still difficult for him to sit, which does not allow him to concentrate on the next masterpiece. But to the great delight of the fans, the novelist broke his promise to stop writing.

In 2004, the last part of the Dark Tower epic was released. And after 2 years, the novelist presented a new work called "The History of Lizzie." From 2008 to 2016, Stephen King delighted readers with the collection of short stories “After Sunset” and the novels “Duma Key”, “Under the Dome”, “Doctor Sleep”, “Mr. Mercedes” and “Renaissance”. In the summer of 2016, “The King of Horrors” presented the third part of the novel “Mr. Mercedes”, which is called “Post Passed”.

The novelist met his future wife Tabitha Spruce at the university. In those difficult years, they gave birth to a son, Joseph, and a daughter, Naomi. Later, a second son appeared - Owen.

The personal life of Stephen King with his beloved wife has developed happily. Together they went through many trials. At the beginning of family life, through poverty. Later - through the alcoholism and drug addiction of the novelist.

Together with his wife, Stephen King owns three estates: in Bangor, Lovell and Sarasota. The last family visits in the winter. It is located on the shores of the warm Gulf of Mexico in Florida. Today, the writer and his wife have four grandchildren.

Stephen King's sons also took their first steps in writing. Naomi's daughter is not interested in writing. She is known for having a relationship with theology teacher Tandeka.

In his spare time, Stephen King attends the games of his favorite Boston Red Sox baseball team. In the 1990s, the couple sponsored the construction of the Mansfield Stadium, and in 2014, the writer took part in raising funds for people who suffer from amyotrophic sclerosis. (from vocal.media/geeks)