11/22/63 by Stephen King. Part 1.

123 pages so far.

1. Random facts

• Last year I watched an 8-part television event based on this book and I loved it.

• This is my first Stephen King’s book.
• Stephen King looks like my grandpa.
• In one of his interviews Stephen King said that JFK’s assassination was 9/11 of their time. He started writing the book (it had a different title then) 10 years after it happened but then stopped because he felt that the wound was too fresh. It was published half a century after JFK was assassinated.
• I adore the films ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ based on a contemporary novel by Ransom Riggs and directed bt Tim Burton (BTW, my favorite director!) and ‘Back to Future’.
• JFK’s life and work are fascinating for me.

What do ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ and ‘ Back to Future’ have to do with it? Yeah, that’s an appropriate question. These films made me realize how the idea time-traveling makes me super excited and engaged. THAT was one of the reasons I started reading this book. I think other reasons are quite clear.

My prejudiced opinion about Stephen King as a writer didn’t manage to prevent me from reading.

2. What is the book about?

I’d like to get you acquainted with a small (!) passage from the annotation to the book, no spoilers ! (yet)

…In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine. sets out on an insane — and insanely possible — mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis and the taste of root beer…

Oh, how appealing, captivating and engaging it sounds, doesn’t it?

So there is this guy, recently divorced Jake, who teaches English. He teaches not only schoolchildren and tries to earn some extra cash teaching GED classes. (important!). One of his students submitted an essay, describing a fatal night when his alcoholic father killed his mother, brother and sister and gave him a permanent brain injury. This story really affectes Jake emotionally.

Jake is a common visitor of one diner, the proprietor of which is Al Templeton. He asks Jake to meet him at his diner the next day. When Jake arrives, he is shocked to see that Al seems to have aged years since the previous day. Al explains that he is dying and that such a quick change is connected with having time traveled and living for years in the past. There is time portal in his diner’s pantry, which he used to transport himself to 1958. Doubting Al’s story at first, Jake travels through the portal, spends an hour in 1958 before returning to the present, after which Al explains that he’s figured out the basics of how the portal functions.

So this is basically how the story starts out.

3. My impressions

The most charming part so far is the descriptions of 1958 American small town. When I am reading the book, I feel as if I were walking along the road together with Jake. It feels real and close.

Stephen King put a whole lot of true historical facts into the book which make the book not only fascinating, but also educational. I try to absorb everything I stumble upon also because of the ways the author put the facts together. You can see his literary talent in every line.

I also adore learning fun facts about the way the portal works. I know these facts are probably not real, but they do make me devour page after page. Then I like to think about the possible outcomes, other variants of development of the events and so on.

I haven’t finished it yet, but I feel it is reasonably safe to suggest that you read it at your leisure.