On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. Unless: 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. In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald.
The intertwined themes in this novel are really interesting because time travel can be viewed as a philosophical and ethical topic. Because of the timing of the time travel in this novel, Jake had to stay in the past for a long time, long enough that he started to build a life. This presented him with a bit of a problem, as he couldn’t tell anyone who he actually was, why he was there, and how he got there. He had to keep so many secrets; they overtook his life and ruined a lot of his relationships with other people he’d met. Obviously, we don’t encounter time travel in our daily lives, but it’s still a very powerful lesson to learn. Keeping secrets from your closest friends, family, or partners will always end badly.
Another philosophical and ethical aspect of time travel is how morally gray it can be. In this novel, Jake goes back to stop the Kennedy assassination. But how many bad things can you actually stop? How is it fair to only stop one or two people from dying and why those two people? What makes their lives more valuable than others? And so the list of questions goes on and there is no answer really, but it is definitely an interesting thing to discuss.
Additionally, I enjoyed the perspective on time travel that is presented in this novel. A common occurrence is that the past doesn’t want to be changed. I feel that in a lot of movies and TV shows where time travel occurs, it’s relatively easy to change the past but there will be consequences due to the butterfly effect; however, in 11/63/22, the universe does a lot to prevent someone from changing the past. It was still possible, but a lot happened to avoid it which is a refreshing view of how time travel could possibly work. Stemming from this, the use of the butterfly effect was also cool. In general, I just think the concept of the butterfly effect is so interesting.
This novel was very, very good. It’s quite long at 850 pages, but definitely worth it. It is clear how much research went into the time period because of all the detail and musical references; these are personally my favorite parts because I love 50s and 60s music, and I just find all the historical events that happened between 1940 and 1970 interesting. Knowing that Stephen King is the author of this novel speaks for itself, but this book was so intriguing and truly a masterpiece.
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