11/22/63

That I would read this book was never in question.Stephen King, for better or worse? The Kennedys? Time-travel? You had me at page one, listening to the hum-drum woes of a man whose wife left him for her AA partner because he is not emotional. Jake Epping is an average guy approaching middle-age, divorced, and teaches high school English is Lisbon Falls, ME. Jake teaches a GED class where he learns that the disfigured school janitor came to be disfigured when his father came one on Halloween 1958 and bludgeoned his whole family to death with a hammer. He gives the janitor an A+, is emotionally moved and treats him to dinner at a diner in town that allegedly serves cat it is so cheap. Interesting, typical Stephen King human interest... but then there is the time bubble.

The time bubble is in the pantry of the crappy diner. The time bubble spits you out in September 1958. The same day in 1958 no matter how many times you travel back, but the kicker is that every time to go to 1958 and return, the next person to go to 1958 resets events like cleaning an etcha-sketch. Jake gets involved when the owner of the diner realizes he is dying, after spending three years in the past trying to change something vital: a watershed moment. Suddenly Jake is handed the keys to changing the past, to escaping his live and to preventing the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. First things first- to prevent a family from being slaughtered on Halloween in 1958.

The book is well researched as far as the history goes, I was impressed with the detail and the knowledge that King not only allowed Jake to accumulate but how much of it was woven into the day-to-day life of living in the era. I read this book while in Dallas and took the time to go down to Dealey Plaza as well as the Sixth Floor Museum that is housed on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Aside from this history glut, King did a great job bringing this time-bubble and its events into his greater universe. The murder in 1958 happens in Derry, ME where there have been a slew of child killings by a vagrant in a clown suit. Beverly from that novels asks if Jake knows about the Turtle? When Jake messed with the timelines too badly the earth seems to tear itself apart, because the past harmonizes: a repeated refrain. The internet yeileded some other connections I missed about repeated references to the Tet Offensive and the evils of the Tet and some possible future cars from "Wizards and Glass".

Very smart book, worth a read if you enjoy history and time-travel. Starts in that maddening King meandering style but as the characters go deeper into the past, into changing things the synergy keeps things from getting boring or long winded as they are wont to do. Good start to 2013 Back-Logging!