Instead, he focuses on whether the past can be changed and, given all the conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s murder, who is the real assassin. King is well-read on this topic and, as he acknowledges in the afterword, is a Finney admirer.)Įpping also knows his Bradbury - he is an English teacher, after all - but doesn’t worry enough about the wisdom of changing the past. (Readers who are familiar with time-travel tales like Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” and Jack Finney’s “Time and Again” may have even more questions. Stop Vietnam, maybe.”Įpping agrees, although he is troubled by a few questions. “If you ever wanted to change the world,” Thompson argues, “this is your chance. Someone healthy and young - like the 35-year-old Epping - needs to travel back to ’58, take up residence for five years, then arrive in Dallas in time to prevent the history-altering events of Nov. The diner owner only has a few months to live, not enough time to accomplish his mission. Shaken and still disbelieving, he returns to the present. The teacher stays for a few hours, then retraces his steps to the portal. When Al Thompson, the terminally ill owner of a local diner, informs him that his storeroom contains a portal to the past, Epping doubts the sick man’s sanity.īut a hesitant walk down the storeroom’s staircase takes Epping from the Lisbon Falls, Maine, of 2011 to the Lisbon Falls, Maine, of 1958.

Kennedy - the past strikes back.Įpping, one of King’s more appealing protagonists, is decent, smart and sensible. When high school history teacher Jake Epping travels back in time to prevent one of the horrors of the past - the assassination of John F. And it’s true that no ghosts, vampires or killer clowns stalk “11 /22 /63.” Yet this may be his most haunted, and haunting, work. Some of King’s most ardent fans had worried that the plot, as revealed in early reports, would skimp on the author’s trademark shivers. Photo Credit: Shane Leonard.Īnd here’s another bit of good news. At nearly 850 pages, “11 /22 /63” is to pick up, but it’s even harder to put down.Īuthor Stephen King. But with this thriller about time travel and fate, our reigning emperor of dread has pulled off an impressive feat.

No popular writer produces more thick-as-a-brick volumes - see the 1,000-page-plus “The Stand” or last year’s “Under the Dome.” There are King fanatics who will gleefully shudder over every word, but many of us find these literary marathons more exhausting than entertaining. His books routinely top the best-seller lists, almost literally crushing the competition. Among living American novelists, Stephen King is the heavyweight champion.

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