11/22/63

Written by:
Stephen King

Presented by:
Caleb Lytle
The Author
Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine on
September 21, 1947. For those of you who don’t know
him, he’s best known for his horror novels Carrie, The
Shining, IT, and Pet Semetary, however, he’s also
written best-selling books in other genres as well such
The Green Mile, Misery, and the Dark Tower series.
He’s said his inspiration for horror novels came as a
child when he found an H.P. Lovecraft book in an attic.
Given that he grew up in Maine, he frequently writes
his stories taking place in Maine.
The Background
A high school English teacher in a Maine town, Jake Epping is stunned by a
gruesome, enthralling essay penned by one of his GED students, janitor Harry
Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer
slaughter of his entire family. But an even more bizarre secret comes to light when
the owner of the local diner enlists Jake on the mission that has become his
obsession… To prevent the Kennedy assassination. By stepping through a portal
in the diner’s storeroom, Jake finds himself in Jodie, Texas, in the era of Ike and
Elvis, of big V8 American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke… But all turns in
the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. History is about to be
rewritten.
The Story
The story follows Jake Epping, a man born in 1971 who currently lives in 2011.
Jake is a very intelligent man with only good intentions in life. But his life is
interrupted when the owner of his favorite diner, Al Templeton steps out of the
diners pantry after just stepping in, and looks deathly sick and to have aged a
decade. Al explains that in the pantry, is a portal to September 9, 1958 at 11:58
a.m. And that no matter how long someone stays in the past, only two minutes
have passed in 2011. Also that everytime you go back to 1958, it’s always back to
the same time the timeline gets reset. From here Al explains that he has known
about the portal since he purchased the diner, and mostly used it to get quality food
for a low price to supply the diner and make a good living, but then devised a very
thought out plan on how to save Kennedy. He figured by doing this, Lyndon B.
Johnson would never be president and the U.S. would never escalate vietnam.
The Story Continued
After this Al reveals he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1961, but still tried to go
through with it until his sickness would prevent him from doing so. Before Al dies
shortly after, he enlists jake to take the task of saving JFK. Jake goes through the
portal and has 4 years until Lee Harvey Oswald would get back from Russia. From
here he decides to first try and save Harry’s family from their murder on Halloween
night 1958. He later goes on to meet the love of his life Sadie Dunhill in Dallas,
1960. Sadie just recently was able to divorce her abusive ex-husband and he
grows jealous after seeing her and jake together. This creates one of the book’s
main conflicts.
Passage
“I went down with a right foot. Went down with my right foot again, and all at once
there was a pop inside my head, exactly like the kind you hear when you’re in an
airplane and the pressure changes suddenly, I opened my eyes. I was no longer in
the pantry, I was no longer in Al’s diner either. I didn’t recognize where I was. Then
after a few confused glances around it hit me. I was standing outside in what
would have been Al’s parking lot. Now it was just a dirt drive. I turned around to
look at the big silver trailer which housed Al’s Diner, but the diner was gone. Now
the question wasn’t where I was, but when I was.”