11/22/63: I Have So Many Feelings
Warning: This article contains spoiler information!
When I received this particular novel for Christmas, I was absolutely certain it was going to, yet again, be another satisfying Stephen King thrill ride. Whether I read his novels, his short stories, or his novellas, I am never not happy with the man's work. Needless to say, I am a Stephen King fan girl in the best- and worse- of ways. Of course, after reading the inside cover of 11/22/63, I was geared up for the ride. Considering the main character, Jake Epping, landed in 1958 Maine, which is a far cry from Dallas-Fort Worth 1963. That was a lot of time to cover, and as the book was over eight hundred pages long, I knew the story would be rich.
What I did not expect, however, was a story that led to heartbreak and hope, a story that would rip tears from my eyes before I ever reached the last chapter.
The plot is simple enough to follow along. Jake Epping, English teacher and former husband of an alcoholic wife, is shown a portal in the past by his friend, Al Templeton. What was shocking was that, overnight, Al had aged and was now on his deathbed due to lung cancer when he had been fine the day before. Of course, when he explained the portal, it made sense. In an effort to stop the assassination of JFK himself, Al had gone back into the past and had lived there until the assassination, which he failed to halt. With the medication for cancer so far from the evolution it has undergone today, he was forced to suffer and lose his health. And since the portal always brings those who go through it back all of two to three minutes later, it appeared as though the change in him was sudden when it had actually happened along a period of years.
After conducting his own test on the portal, which does not accomplish what he set out to do, Jake finds Al has committed suicide and takes Al's notes on Lee Harvey Oswald, money from the past, and a list of sports results from those years so he can attempt to stop Oswald himself. With a handful of fake identification, he takes the name George Amberson.
The most interesting part of the book, in the beginning, was the fact that Al drilled a lesson into Jake: the past does not want to change. It is obdurate. During the time when Jake was making changes, odd things would happen, seemingly without catalyst, that would foil his plans. People showing up and distracting him at what seemed like odd times. His car not working properly. Getting horrid stomach pains and having diarrhea. Just odd, little things that try to stand in his way, growing in proportion the closer he was to stopping the assassination. It was interesting, just watching his little life in the past unfold. It allowed me to feel in touch with him, to care about him as a character, and I worried when bad things happened to him. But when he moves to a little town called Jodie in Texas, preparing for the assassination, the emotional level was jacked up far higher than it had been.
Jake falls in love with a woman named Sadie Dunhill, who is more or less on the run from her ex-husband, who is, as Bruce Banner would say, "as crazy as a bag of cats", doing such things as placing a broom between them as they sleep. As Jake's relationship with Sadie develops, she opens up to him about the trauma of her marriage, and the two fall in love. He teaches at the local high school, forms bonds with the teenagers, and encourages one of them to take the part of Lenny in a production of Of Mice And Men, which moves the audience to tears and gets a standing ovation. However, when Sadie overhears him singing the Rolling Stones and confronts him about he, he chooses to leave rather than tell her the truth that he is from the future.
He moves to an apartment in Fort Worth to keep track of Lee Harvey Oswald, seeing that, like any other person, Oswald has his own personal and familial problems, especially with his wife, whom he abuses regularly, and his mother, who never takes no for an answer. During this time, Jake speaks to Sadie and tells her who he truly is, and shortly after, she is attacked and horribly disfigured by her ex-husband. Jake refuses to leave her side, staying with her at the hospital after hours and even taking on another school production, which is dedicated to her. She even regains her confidence due to his taking care of her, much of which stemmed from his ex-wife's common drunken nights. They go to the televising of a boxing match, of which he knows the outcome and made a ridiculously high bet on for the money. When, of course, he is correct, the bookie and his men beat him severely, having connected him with other high stakes, ridiculous bets in other cities. He suffers extreme memory loss, yet again proof the past does not want to change. But with Sadie's help, he regains his memory and prepares to halt the assassination. During this attempt, though, Sadie is killed.
Oddly enough, the entire focus of the book, which was the assassination of John F. Kennedy, was gone in that moment when Jake held his dying love in his arms until she breathed her last. I am not typically one to willingly read romance novels, and since I had no idea this would develop into one, I read it anyway. But as soon as Sadie died, my heart was broken. Jake's love for her, detailed so vividly, seemed too strong to ever combat, and then she was gone. Just like that, just in a flash of Oswald's gun. As far as I was concerned, JFK could take a hike to Canada and stay there because my attention was solely on Jake. And upon returning to the time portal, he is informed by a creature who watches it that he must go into the future and come back, effectively erasing all of the hard work he had done and the time he spent with Sadie. After seeing the repercussions of his actions, he does.
The entire novel, except for the last major chapter, was really just one long letter to Sadie, the true love of Jake's life and the one he could never truly have. Just reading his final goodbye to her, knowing how much he was hurting, how dear she had been to him only weeks after meeting her, felt like a knife twisting through my heart as I held the book to my chest and wept. Though I do have my emotional times, I have never cried over a book like I have this one. Before I ever reached the true conclusion of the novel, I had to pause to have a Kleenex break and just reflect on what a beautiful book it was. Though Stephen King is known for his science fiction, his horror, and his thrillers, 11/22/63 was a love story, and it is one I will never be able to forget.
