11/22/63: A Novel [Hardcover]

Stephen King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2011

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.

Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, 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.

A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Fine stories to take with us into the night.' -- Neil Gaiman in the Guardian 'America's greatest living novelist.' -- Lee Child 'King's gift of storytelling is unrivalled. His ferocious imagination is unlimited.' -- George Pelecanos 'King's most purely entertaining novel in years ... utterly compelling.' -- John Connolly on UNDER THE DOME 'Staggeringly addictive.' -- USA Today on UNDER THE DOME 'Tight and energetic from start to finish.' -- New York Times on UNDER THE DOME 'The pedal is indeed to the metal.' -- Guardian on UNDER THE DOME --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are Full Dark No Stars, Blockade Billy, Under the Dome, Just After Sunset, the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Lisey's Story and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was recently re-released in a tenth anniversary edition. King was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2007 he was inducted as a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America.  He lives in Maine with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 849 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Edition/First Printing edition (November 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451627289
• ISBN-13: 978-1451627282
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,300 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Alternate History
  • #5 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror
  • #7 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

More About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1,115 of 1,203 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The past is obdurate, November 10, 2011

By 

Susan Tunis (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 11/22/63: A Novel (Hardcover)

Stephen King started publishing books around roughly the same time I started reading them. It was the mid 70s, and I was a precocious young thing. I was fearless, and man I loved what he was writing! I haven't read nearly all of his novels in the decades since, but enough to have a pretty good familiarity with the universe that his works share. Now entering my more fearful middle age, I can tell you there is, oddly, something deeply comforting about submerging myself again in his rich, folksy world where heroes ARE heroic, all stories come full circle, and pretty much all nagging questions are eventually put to rest.

The hero of 11/22/63 is Jake Epping, and early on in this novel he is presented with something inconceivable, a sort of wormhole in time. It leads from 2011 Maine to September 9, 1958. You can visit the past for as long as you like--years even--but when you return to the present it's always exactly two minutes later. Every subsequent visit is a "reset." You can change the past (and consequently the present), but as Jake learns, "the past is obdurate." It resists.

There's more to the set-up, of course, but that's all you really need to know. Because with this portal to the past, Jake is set on a mission that would probably be the goal of most every person of a certain age--to stop the Kennedy assassination. I don't think it resonates quite so strongly with those of us who weren't around to remember Camelot, but, sure, 11/22/63 was one of the most pivotal days in this nation's history. It's a day that surely scarred the psyche of every American who remembers it.

For long-time readers like myself, there are some wonderful Easter eggs to be found in 11/22/63, tying back to past novels, and probably to future ones as well. It's amazing how King does that. Characters I haven't seen for decades make cameo appearances and gosh it's great to see them. If Mr. King has one skill above all, it's the ability to breathe life into his characters. No wonder they live on long after their stories end. And it's not just the characters that feel like old friends, it's merely inhabiting the King-verse with its familiar town names, attitudes, and themes. Like I said, comforting.

So, if it's not obvious already, I loved this novel from start to finish! Heck, I read 849 pages in less than 48 hours. But Mr. King might have written this one just for me. I have a thing for time travel stories. In fact, 11/22/63 has several similarities with an old favorite I recently re-read: Replay, by Ken Grimwood. The ideas of this novel are pretty compelling, and it's not surprising that others have explored them. Reading the two so close together made for an interesting counterpoint, and did disservice to neither.

Thirty-seven years and several dozen novels after his first, Stephen King is still finding new stories to tell in inventive ways. Yes, those familiar echoes are there, but somehow Mr. King is keeping his prolific output fresh. 11/22/63 is a blast from the past. I'm glad I got to travel there with this dear old friend.

243 of 261 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Through the past darkly - a no spoilers review, November 15, 2011

By 

James Tepper (Boonton Township, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 11/22/63: A Novel (Hardcover)

"11/22/63", Stephen King's latest, might just be his greatest. Seriously. At least as far as "mainstream" fiction or "literature" goes. Yes, it is built around a well-used SF trope, time travel, but really, the portal to the past that Jake Epping is shown in the back of an aluminum diner is only the launch mechanism for this fantastic journey. There are no monsters here, at least none that aren't human and little or no horror in the supernatural sense that KIng's constant readers have come to know, love and expect. Even SK's other "straight" fiction, "Misery", "Dolores Claiborne" and "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" come to mind, had elements of the supernatural and/or flat-out horror. Not this time.

But that doesn't mean that 11/22/63 is boring. Quite the contrary. Although it might seem that it would be tough to build suspense around a conclusion that seems to be inevitable, this turns out not to be the case. Big time. I just finished playing hooky from work for a day when I read the last 400 pages non-stop (except for a couple of bathroom breaks), because I just couldn't stop. I just kept pressing the advance button on my Kindle.

The adjective that first comes to mind in describing 11/22/63 among SK's oeuvre is "mature". I have read every novel and anthology that he has published, plus a large number of single short stories, starting with "Carrie" in a borrowed paperback back in the late 1970s. I have never before thought of describing his work in any of them, many good, some great and a few clunkers (some of which I have reviewed as such), as mature. But that is the first word that comes to mind in describing 11/22/63. There were others too; exciting, romantic, bittersweet and, as with all SK's stuff, well-written.

Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination were obviously very well-researched, clear even before one gets to the afterword describing some of the sources and methods used, and the lead-up to the day of the assassination is described in great detail, along with Oswald's relationship to his family and associates, all a matter of historical record.

The world of 1958-1963 is described in wonderful detail, through the eyes of Jake as he gradually sheds his early 21st century armored shell and falls in love with a small Texas town and Sadie, its new young librarian. Their love story is a (actually the) centerpiece of the novel and is told with great depth, sensitivity and believability. I'm old enough to have experienced lots of the stuff that Jake encounters in 1958 (albeit as a child) and it jives with and jogs my recollections and induces a feeling of longing for older, simpler times. For King''s "Constant Readers", there are easter egg cameos from "It" and "The Langoliers" that I recognized. Knowing SK, there may well be others.

The ending is not predictable (if you say you saw it all coming you are either lying or should be a best-selling novelist) and is surprisingly satisfying. To those who say KIng doesn't know how to end his novels, I say, read this one.

Highly Recommended for all (even those who think they know but don't "like" Stephen King).

JM Tepper

400 of 434 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not disappointed, November 11, 2011

By 

William E. Liberatore (Bridgeport, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 11/22/63: A Novel (Hardcover)

I first read about this book a few months ago. While I am a fan of Stephen King, I'm not a huge fan. I don't typically buy his books the day they are released, but when I read the premise for this one I just thought that it was a really neat idea and I couldn't wait for it to be released so that I could read it. Then I got a little nervous about it. From the time I read the teaser I thought that there were so many interesting directions that someone could take this story, but what if it tanks? That's always the pitfall of a really neat idea... what if it fails to really bloom like you think it could? But this is Stephen King. For my review, I'd like to establish that I was born almost 7 years after JFK died. I am not a JFK scholar and I did not read this book trying to hyper-analyze the historical accuracy of the book. I took it as a fictional exploration of a historical event produced not to answer any historical questions but just to entertain and provoke thought. I feel it was very successful on both points. My fears that Stephen King was going to take a great idea and go nowhere with it were definitely unfounded. He also works in all his usual Stephen King "givens"... the story starts in Maine. We even get to "visit" a couple of characters from other Stephen King books and the town of Derry, though the majority of the book is set in Texas of course. On the whole I usually review books based on how well spent I feel my time was in reading it and I am in no way disappointed in this one. If you buy the book I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and thank you for taking the time to read my review.