A King and a President

I've read my share of Stephen King books over the years (though only a fraction of what he's written). I've also seen my share of film and television adaptations of his work (though again, only a fraction, since virtually everything he's ever written has been adapted). But not since reading The Dark Tower series many years ago have I had the experience of reading one of his books before seeing the adapted version. Then I read 11/22/63.

The book follows a man attempting to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- so obviously, I wasn't coming to it with a completely blank slate. Plenty of real-world locations and people appear in the book, and I had enough familiarity with some to "cast" them in my mind's eye as I read. (I was also aware of some of the actors in the Hulu mini-series, though I didn't find them intruding on "my version" of the tale.) Still, not having some director's striking visuals, not hearing some actor's take on a particular line, not knowing quite where the narrative was going to end up... these feel like rare experiences when it comes to Stephen King, and experiences I quite enjoyed.

It also helped that I liked the book in general. Stephen King was definitely writing in a different mode here, stepping away from the horror genre he's best known for. You could debate the genre here if that matters to you... science fiction? Historical fiction? But this is a different kind of story. (One which he notes in his Afterword that he dreamed of early in his career, but doubted then he had the writing skill to tell it the way he wanted.)

It is a rather long book (as Stephen King books tend to be), though it's also a fairly brisk read. Things do slow down a bit in the middle; the plot is set up in a way that years pass, and they do so mainly in service of a romantic subplot. Nevertheless, this middle section still adds meaningful personal stakes to the overall "high concept" plot, so even if you'd call the middle slow, you could hardly call it inessential.

There's plenty of good tension throughout. (Stephen King may not be writing "horror" here, strictly speaking, but he knows tension.) Clever ideas are peppered throughout too. (I found particularly interesting the idea that the past is actively protective of itself, and hostile to those who would try to alter history.) Perhaps best of all, the ending feels strong to me, which when it comes to Stephen King is not always the case. (He credits his son in the Afterword for help in that area. Whatever gets the job done, I suppose!)

The only weak spots for me were minor ones. Stephen King clearly did a lot of research for this book, including various conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. I think in a couple places, he internalized that background a little too much and assumed greater knowledge on the part of the reader than he should have. In particular, the importance of one George de Mohrenschildt in validating some of the "Oswald didn't act alone" theories didn't feel at all clear to me while reading the book; it instead was just a Macguffin I rolled with.

But overall, this was one of the better experiences I've had reading Stephen King. I give 11/22/63 an A-. Not to get ahead of myself on future blog content, but soon after finishing it, I found myself diving right into the Hulu adaptation. I wanted more. More. More!