I used to look forward to each new Stephen King book. Even if it didn’t scare me, it at least entertained me. But lately (and by lately I mean the last 10-15 years), I’ve been more disappointed by Stephen King books than entertained. And this doesn’t change with his latest 11/22/63, King’s take on JFK. It sounded interesting (as most of King’s books do), but the story just never coalesced and at times I was wondering if King got lost and started writing a different book before remembering what he was supposed to be writing about. So, let’s check out what went wrong.

Jake Epping is a teacher in modern day Maine who is buddies (kinda) with local diner owner Al. Al’s restaurant isn’t the greatest food, but it’s cheap and decent and fun. Al comes to Jake one day and wants to tell him something and show him something. Al found out he has cancer, and not the type that you can cure. But what he wants to show Jake is much weirder. Back in his pantry is a gateway to 1958. You walk through it and you are in Maine in September of 1958. Al’s been keeping his prices low by buying meat at 1958 prices (and I’m assuming with 1958 health code laws). But Al had a dream, he spent four years in the past going to change one event. Stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK. But the cancer progressed too far for Al to finish it and he wants Jake to take it over.

So, we have a time travel story and here are the ground rules. Every time you come back to the present and then re-enter the past, the changes you made are reset. You kill someone, come to the present and they are dead. Go back into the past and they’re back as if the killing never happened. The second rule is that the bigger the event you are trying to change, the more history itself tries to stop you. Headaches, car crashes, savage beatings are all thrown in the way to stop someone from actually changing history.

So Jake agrees and goes back in time to save JFK. But somewhere along the line, King seems to lose focus on what he’s trying to do. Jake goes into Derry for a side trip of a couple hundred pages to save an ex-students family from being destroyed by their monstrous father (and spends time with Bev and Richie from IT). And then after a quick stop over in Florida, Jake ends up in a small town just outside Dallas. Here, King spends another few hundred pages with a blossoming romance between Jake (who’s going by the name George Amberson) and a new school librarian named Sadie who’s escaping a bad marriage. King spends so much time focusing on George and Sadie that we almost lose track of what Jake is really here for. Finally Jake focuses on Oswald and Kennedy and the story starts moving again, until a badly timed bet and Sadie’s ex-husband cause Jake to almost lose his way and his plan of getting rid of Oswald in advance becomes a chase to stop him at the last second.

After Jake/George escape some of the aftermath of the investigation, he jumps back to the present and is presented with the results of his past changes. And Jake has to figure out whether he wants to keep this new future or jump back into the past to change it back.

The biggest problem I had with the book is the lack of focus. The interesting parts (as I see it) would be: First Jake stalking Oswald and attempting to see if anyone else was involved (no use taking out Oswald if he really was a patsy and someone could take his place) and not getting killed and/or arrested for it. And second seeing what the present holds after the past is changed. King spends so much time on George and Sadie that we lose track of Oswald for a long period of time and the new present is dealt with in only a handful of pages. King seems to be interested in a much different story and seems to lose focus on the core of his idea.

Overall, it’s a thoroughly mediocre book. The writing is decent and the main characters are fleshed out well. But there are too many places where it seems very rushed. Jake and Al are rushed at the beginning, dealing with Oswald is rushed at the end and the new present is barely dealt with at all. There’s a really good book in here somewhere, but I’m afraid King just went writing all over the place and missed it. The book feels more like a polished first draft, then a finely tuned final draft. Better editing and more focus on the basics would have helped a lot and made this a much more enjoyable book. Not recommended.