Book - 11/22/63

I have a separate book review blog but I have decided to combine this with my movie blog.

The book 11/22/63 is by Stephen King.  I confess that I have never before read a Stephen King book and have never seen a complete Stephen King movie.  This title and the dust jacket, however, intrigued me greatly and I had to read this book since I have always been interested in the Kennedy assassination and various conspiracy theories and resolutions of these theories.

Stephen King writes horror books and the dust cover suggests that the book if "terrifying."  I would have to disagree.  It is an interesting and good book but far from terrifying  It has the hero Jake Epping following the lead of his friend, Al, in entering and trying to alter the past through a portal which has him emerge in 1958.  Al wants to prevent the Kennedy assassination by killing Lee Harvey Oswald.  That premise is interesting, to say the least, but the only struggle I had with Jake (who disguises himself as George Amberson) is really capable of killing anyone.

He falls in love with a teacher named Sadie and again and again he finds that the past is "obdurate" and resistant to change.  All sorts of things get in his way time and again until he finds himself rushing on November 22, 1963, to prevent this terrible day in history.

The book is very good and may very well be adapted to a movie or TV movie, though there are so many sub-plots that it would be impossible to really bring the entire book to the screen.  My son says that a book always has an "unlimited budget" when it comes to our imagination.  How true this is.  I found myself quickly turning the pages when "we" finally after 700 pages get to the key date.

I like the book but don't always appreciate the street language that invades the pages.  King manages to make us sympathize just a bit with Oswald and paints an incredible picture of what life was really like in the late 1950's.  Just reading about restaurants, movies, music, and dances fills one with nostalgia.  I remember this stuff!

Hey...if you want to read an 850 page book, read it.  I don't think you'll be disappointed...especially if you like Kennedy assasination reading.