This is about a high school English teacher named Jake
Epping, who is asked to travel through a "rabbit hole" into the year
1958 (from 2011). The idea, is that he will live in the past until the year
1963 and stop the assassination of Kennedy on November 22nd of that year (hence
the title). He has learned that the past does not want to be changed, and the
larger the change, the more obstacles someone would have to overcome in order
to make the change. The book follows him over the several years he lives in the
past, and his detective work to see if Oswald was the assassin and/or if there
were someone else involved. As anyone would, who lived in a new place for a
while, he makes friends and begins to feel at home in the past. This
complicates things when he thinks about going home again. What will happen,
when the date in question is over? Will he have stopped the assassination? Will
he be able to leave his new friends? Will he get back to the “rabbit hole” and the
year 2011 to see how much better the world would have been had Kennedy lived?
This book really kept my interest. It was not scary or a
horror story. It was suspenseful. I was always excited to know what would
happen next. He does tie in several other books. Jake has a bit of time in
Derry, and references are made to children being murdered by a man dressed as a
clown (It) and Eddie disappearing (The Dark Tower Series). There are several
references to Kennedy in his other books as well. It’s always a lot of fun to
have his stories take place in his own unique world, and having them tie into
each other. I have not read a lot of his books, so I am sure I missed a lot of
the references, but you don’t have to know them in order to follow the story.
This is one hunk of a read at about 850 pages, but well worth it.
I don’t know a lot about the Kennedy assassination, and all
the conspiracies and theories surrounding it, but King really did his homework
when he was writing the book. It all seems extremely plausible that events
could have happened as he described - minus the time travel! If you like
mystery and suspense I would recommend this as a great escape into the past.
I gave it a 4/5
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