11/22/63

by Stephen King
 
Stephen King is not one of my go-to authors.  I read The Shining way back when I was in college and decided that scaring myself silly wasn’t really my idea of a good read.  That probably explains why I was totally unaware that King had published a prize-winning novel of a different sort that puts a man in the position to alter history by traveling back to 1963 and trying to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 
 
Time travel does not fall high on my list of favorite literary devices either.  But King uses it masterfully in this substantial novel.  He doesn’t bog the reader down with the details of how the time travel works.  You know there is a portal in the small-town Maine diner and you see the main character navigate traveling back to the 1950s a few times to right some wrongs done to a few people.  He works himself up to the ultimate goal, which is to travel to 1963 and stop Lee Harvey Oswald from murdering JFK.  King tells the tale with great suspense.  He populates the narrator’s life with many characters the reader comes to care for very much, both in the present and in 1963.
 
Reading this book felt like a gamble for me.  But I took the recommendation of many of my friends, who couldn’t believe that I’d never read it.  And I found it both entertaining and a page-turner.  I recommend that you also take the plunge. (Liz)