At first glance 11/22/63 seems like it's going to explore the question, "Would the world have been better off if Kennedy hadn't been killed?", but it is so much more than that.
King dives right in and in the first few clicks (it's an ebook), you’re back on Sept. 9, 1958. It’s 11:58 a.m. There are only two conditions to traveling back in time. One, it’s not a one-way trip. It doesn’t have to be. But when you return, no matter how long you’ve stayed in the past — two days, five years, whatever — only two minutes have gone by in the present. Two, each time you go back to the past, there is a reset, it’s 11:58 a.m., and everything you did on your previous trip has been erased. Also, you continue to age.
Living in the past, even the recent past, is not so easy but if you know your history and play it smart, you can fit in. It becomes very clear that King has studied his history and truly pondered how a man from the present could live in the past, 20 years before his birth. This is fascinating and King's attention to detail is thought provoking, paradigm shifting and fun - he worked on this novel for almost 30 years. However, at its core (at least for me), 11/22/63 - is a true, old fashioned love story.
Just as King has us rooting for true love, he reminds us that he is a horror writer and in keeping with his recent books - Under the Dome; Full Dark, No Stars - the horror does not come from the sewers or dark creatures, it's humans and it's brutal. King doesn't hold back and I found myself thinking he could teach the SAW writers how it's really done. By the time we get King's answer to Kennedy living, it's almost insignificant.
11/22/63 is a great read and while King does revisit some past novels and characters, the casual King reader won't notice. At 878 pages, it's about average length for a King book and we get to know and care about the characters at a depth never approached by The Hunger Games, which I read after this novel. Not really fair to The Hunger Games.
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