11.22.63 by Stephen King

Last month Stephen King published his fifty fourth novel "11.22.63". First of all, let me say that I am a huge Stephen King fan. I think he is one of the best storytellers to put pen to paper and a keen observer of human nature. However, it was with a whimper of vague relief that I finished this giant tome earlier today.

In "11.22.63" King combines one of the great American stories and one of the great literary premises, the assassination of President Kennedy and the idea of time travel. In an interview King admitted that he first had the idea for this novel in 1971 when he was a school teacher but found the research required too overwhelming to manage at the time. With hindsight he is glad he waited but I can't help feel that this story was allowed to stagnate in his brain for too long as what has come out is a bloated and messy novel, with just a few hints of the greatness I know Stephen King is capable of.

Let's start with the premise. Our hero Jake Epping, a divorced school teacher is convinced by his local diner proprietor, Al to go back in time and stop the Kennedy assassination from happening. They are going to do this through a little hole in time-space-reality at the back of Al's diner marked by what appears to be an invisible concrete step that spits you out into 1958. Hmmm. I wasn't convinced.

Even less convincing was the fact that Al managed to persaude Jake of the importance of his mission at all. They barely seemed more than acquaintances at best and whilst Al was adamant that a world with JFK would be a better one, little was done to show us that Jake held deep seated convictions of his own in this vein or indeed that he thought much of Kennedy at all. In fact Jake admits several times during the book that his historical knowledge is basic, at best so what on earth would cause him to hold so fiercely to the idea that saving Kennedy would be a good thing? Throughout his time-travelling adventures Jake refers frequently to the "butterfly effect" with some wariness. What kind of effect on history is he having just by being in 1958? However, he never seems to contemplate that making an enormous change like saving a US president from assassination would have any effect other than good on the course of history, specifically stopping the Vietnam War from ever happening. I found myself harking back to "The Dead Zone" where the hero has a glimpse of a terrifying future and sets out to change it in the present. Jake had no idea what he was letting himself or the world in for and still launched himself into the task with what seemed to me to be ill-informed gusto. For most of the book I just wasn't sure that what he was doing was right and that was the major problem for me.

So Jake heads back to 1958 and takes the pseudonym George Amberson. What we have from here on out is an all out nostalgia trip. This is the land of King's childhood, which having read "On Writing" a half autobiographical look at his craft, I know is  a precious memory  to the man. Everything tastes better in the past . Everything is cheap. Everything is pure and innocent. Although it must be said that King's view is not entirely rose-tinted as hefty reminders of racism and prejudice are scattered throughout just to remind the reader how far we have come. 

There was a shining beacon of excitement for me when George/ Jake visited post-"IT" Derry and encountered some familiar faces. Call me a geek but I love it when King pulls his worlds together into one SK universe. The frisson created by the undulating violence  and horror of Derry is mirrored for an instant when George/ Jake finally arrives in Dallas to carry out his mission (in fact Dallas isn't done any favours at all by King, he clearly hates the place) but then that is lost again as George/ Jake moves to small town Jodie and becomes... a school teacher. Exciting stuff. We are then treated to what, to be honest seemed like endless pages of school and small town stories interspersed with scenes where George/ Jake occasionally stalks would-be assassin Oswald and his family.

The main storyline for the seemingly unedited mid-section is the love story of George/ Jake and school librarian Sadie . A likeable couple, I didn't really want them to fail although I felt that we spent a little too much time with their blossoming romance at the expense of the pace of the story. What really dismayed me about this romance was the physical side.  Stephen King has never been great at sex scenes but these were bad. Really bad. Sadie and George/ Jake might be having a great time in bed, but I honestly just wanted it to be over.  Apparently King has been nominated for a Bad Sex Award on the back of this book and I can truly say that it is well-deserved. *shudder* 

Although I would never profess to be enormously knowledgeable about the details of the Kennedy assassination, King has clearly found some time to do some homework on this. The "real-life" characters of the Oswalds and their acquaintances are really cleverly and brilliantly portrayed, particularly as there is little real interaction between our hero and narrator and those people. Oswald is an immature, unstable wife-beater but the   character is not two-dimensional,  as his overbearing mother  and his family's poverty  are shown as examples  of the things that went wrong for this troubled man.   

In terms of horror there are very few   classic King moments, but this is no real disservice to the book. Aside from the inevitable force of violence that is Oswald, the other villain of the piece is the past itself which we are constantly reminded is "obdurate". Turns out the past doesn't want to be changed, which again makes you wonder why George/ Jake is so insistent to bend it to his will.

*SPOILER ALERT* 

And the assasination itself? Well, King leaves us in no doubt as to his views on the many conspiracy theories about that day. However, what could have been a really interesting ending is frankly a little rushed and a little overdone. We are treated to a narrative that covers exactly one hour in a 2011 where Kennedy survived and we get a potted alternative history that throws some curve-balls at some well-known names and is generally a bit depressing. But we get no real answer as to whether this happened because of Kennedy's ongoing presence or just because time doesn't like being messed with. The moral of the story seems to be "what will be will be" which I am happy with as a general rule for life, but it kind of made me wonder why I had to read nearly 1000 pages to get to that.

*SPOILER OVER*

This book is not badly written, indeed I think King is incapable of writing something truly bad, but it does lack some structure in places and I will echo many fans' view that King's editors have gone on a really long holiday and don't show any signs of coming back. In the same interview I mentioned earlier, King said that he didn't think that people in their twenties and thirties really "got" what happened on that day in November 1963. King claims it was his generation's 9/11 and, indeed it has been crystalised in history as one of those "everybody knows where they were when..." moments. As a thirty something, I was not even thought of in 1963 so maybe this is why this book hasn't resonated with me as it has with so many other readers. My collection of Stephen King horrors has pride of place on my shelves and had this latest offering been what I had hoped for ,  a shiny hardback edition of "11.23.63" would have joined my tatty paperback collection. As it stands, I bought this in Kindle format and I won't be buying the paper edition.

Sorry Steve. I still love you, though.