11/22/63
by Stephen King
Awards: Goodreads Winner 2011, LA Times Winner 2011
Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2013, New York Times Finalist 2011
Date Read: April 23, 2022
I am in shock and awe over this book. The level of detail. The complexities of King’s working and understanding of time. Of the repercussions of moving one thing in the past and the impact that has on the future. I can only say that I think he’s a genius. Then again, over the last several years, I have heard King remark on current events and I think he’s brilliant at breaking down the hypocrisy that dominates our current political discourse and my opinion of him has only risen. Now it has gone stratospheric.
Jake is a teacher with a divorced alcoholic as his ex-wife and not a lot of ties to the community. You can tell from the get-go that he has a good soul and his heart is in the right place. Out of the blue, the owner of the diner Jake likes to eat at urgently summons him and out of curiosity, he responds. He finds Al greatly diminished from the man he saw the day prior. He is obviously not long for this world and seems to have aged decades overnight.
Finally, Al reveals his secret, although burden is more exact. He has, right in the diner’s pantry, a time warp that brings anyone who crosses its threshold back to 1958. At first, Jake is incredulous, as any rational human would be. But after experiencing it for himself, he is dumbfounded. The knowledge of this time warp, however, comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility.
Al and Jake begin conspiring about the ways in which they can change the past for the better. Jake’s student, Harry, just revealed to him through an essay that his entire family was slaughtered at the hands of his drunk father. Jake realizes he could make that never happen. A girl that ended up in a wheelchair from a hunting accident could be made to walk again. Al, however, has the ultimate clincher. A person who lingered long enough in the past could prevent the assassination of JFK. His death led to so much chaos, they believe – the assassination of MLK, the Vietnam War, etc.
As Al keeps talking over everything he knows – and doesn’t know – about JFK’s killing, the more Jake begins to realize he has the power to change history. Both Al and Jake know Al is going to die within days due to lung cancer but Jake has the time hold, the knowledge and the means (thanks to Al) to get this project off the ground. And with no real family ties to hold him, Jake becomes George Amberson. The one catch is that once you come back, if you ever enter the time hole again, everything that you had changed before is erased. So if he succeeds in preventing JFK’s assassination, he can’t ever travel through the time hole again.
George is able to accomplish everything he has set out to do but it’s the one thing he doesn’t set out to do that changes him forever – he falls in love. He falls in love in a way he has never loved before. Her name is Sadie and she is a librarian at the same school George teaches at in Jodie, Texas. In accomplishing the ultimate goal he set out to do, he ends up losing Sadie.
For many reasons I understand and for some that I don’t, Jake isn’t able to erase his work and do it all again. Even just the thought of it is exhausting. He is willing, however, to save the woman he loves. But he realizes he needs to say good bye to her forever.
The only other work I’ve read of King’s is Misery back when the movie came out with Kathy Bates. While I enjoyed that novel, as creepy as it was, it didn’t have nearly the same literary punch that 11/22/63. I am truly overwhelmed by the detail and creativity this creation took to come to life. And come to life it did.
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