Stephen Edwin King’s 11/22/63 (© Scribner November 8, 2011) takes readers on a tilt-a-whirl trip through time to a date with destiny which dead ends in Dealey Plaza.
I guess as a crime historian I’ve been reading and writing too much true-life stuff for my own good because the very first thing I did, I must admit out of habit more than anything else, when I opened up Stephen King’s newest book was to check it for acknowledgments or afterword or endnotes. A study of the volume's “Contents” offered no help, so I thumbed through the 849-page tome and, somewhat surprisingly, found both “Final Notes” and “Afterword”.
But upon a quick glance, I determined King’s “Final Notes” were still part and parcel of the novel’s storyline, and therefore not the explanatory notes normally evident in non-fiction. However, I discovered that the “Afterword” was indeed what one would expect to find in a fact-based work. And as Shakespeare had Hamlet in his soliloquy say: ay, there’s the rub.
If only Stephen King had stopped typing on page 842 of 11/22/63 rather than adding six pages of acknowledgments (“I hate to bore you with my Academy Awards speech – I get very annoyed with writers who do that”) and something I can only state is akin, along the lines, of almost an apology in advance (“I originally tried to write this book way back in 1972”).
For it is there, within those half-dozen pages, that he drops, at least as far as this historical detective is concerned, that is, his big dirty bomb: “Probably the most useful source materials I read in preparation for writing this novel were Case Closed by Gerald Posner…”. Say it ain’t so, Stevo, please for God’s sakes, no! I won’t bother readers here with opinions about Posner, but rather for interested parties I'd recommend a look-see at a prior article.
You Only Go Around Once In Life
Putting that unfortunate complaint aside, however, I plunged into 11/22/63. Regardless of the Posner poisoning, Stephen King proves why the prose he’s written has sold in the neighborhood of a half-billion units, between books, films, etc.. That he is a master storyteller there is no doubt whatsoever. For 842 pages, he places readers right alongside his protagonist, Jake Epping aka George Amberson, a schoolteacher turned time-tripper.
King thankfully does not use time-machine technology to transport Epping/Amberson from the present to the past, opting to utilize instead a portal, a tear, if you will, in the fabric of time. And to introduce the hero to the ropes of time travel is his instructor, a dying diner owner veteran day-tripper, and an anomaly in his own right, named Al Templeton, who recruits Jake/George for, what seems to be, on the surface at least, a noble quest: to foil the killing of Kennedy. Though this is quite an ironic development, due to the fact that Mr. King has Epping/Amberson admit to Templeton that as an English teacher, not a history teacher, he has paid little, if any, attention, ever at all, to the details of the JFK assassination.
However, as Stephen King is prone to point out, things are easier said than done. Interestingly and intriguing, each jaunt starts in September of 1958 and every journey starts (and oft-times ends) with the meet and greet of an enigmatic character called a Card Man. Needless to say, Jake Epping as George Amberson, shortly after finding himself back in the so-called happy days of the late 1950s he soon is no stranger to danger. I
t’s not long before he concludes that Templeton had been correct, the past doesn’t welcome change, as the 1950s become the 1960s. Stephen King spans the two decades by spinning a thrilling tale of drama and trauma, of lives and loves lost and found, then lost and found again. Of course, as we are too often and acutely aware of, all’s fair in life, love and war. Though in 11/22/63, the question which its author asks us all to consider is: can time travel take care of those things that need changing?
Note: for readers looking for answers as to the very real possibility, if not probability, of actual time travel, I'd suggest instead a peek at a previously penned and published piece about Dr Mallett on the Decoded Science website.
So Grab All The Gusto You Can
In conclusion, as my own mind wandered once again over that teenage wasteland memory of that most wicked of weekends in death-dealing Dallas, Texas, which was damaged, like a scratch on a well-worn long-playing record, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mr King had ever taken the time to read the report of Tom Wicker, then the 37-year-old political journalist of The New York Times, who was there in Dealey Plaza that day and stated in his report as regards“Dr. Perry, the first physician to treat the President…”, the following: “Later in the afternoon, Dr Malcolm Perry, an attending surgeon, and Dr Kemp Clark, chief of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, gave more details.”
“Mr Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam's apple, they said. This wound had the appearance of a bullet's entry.”
“Mr. Kennedy also had a massive, gaping wound in the back and one on the right side of the head."
"However, the doctors said it was impossible to determine immediately whether the wounds had been caused by one bullet or two”.
Sources:
• Brown, Walt, The People v Lee Harvey Oswald © Carroll & Graf 1994.
• Douglass, James W, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters © Orbis 2008.
• Wicker, Tom, Special to The New York Times, Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963 – "President John Fitzgerald Kennedy Was Shot And Killed By An Assassin Today" © The New York Times November 22, 1963.
Rick Stelnick - Rick Stelnick is a superannuated political scientist, crime historian and historical detective.
