11/22/63. Finished 3-16-16, rating 5/5, fiction, pub. 2011

Unabridged audio perfectly read by Craig Wasson. 31 hours.

Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in a Maine town. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away . . . but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke. . . . Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten . . . and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.   from Goodreads

Stephen King sure does know how to tell a  story.  Everyone knows how imaginative he is based on his otherworldly horror novels, but what gets lost sometimes is just how good he is at drawing you in and keeping you there in his world well after the last page has turned.  This book is a departure of sorts and showcases just how well King can charm any reader.

In this ambitious novel, Jake Epping tries to become the hero the world needs.  In many ways he succeeds just by trying and in others his personal steadfastness saves the day.  In 2011, Jake is a high school teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, when he is approached by Al Templeton, owner of a local diner.  Al has a fantastical story to tell.  There is a time portal in his diner that goes back to 1958 and he wants Jake to go back in time to save President Kennedy from assassination.  Al has gone back many a time and gives Jake money, a plan, and all he needs to know to stop Oswald.  Is this a time travel story? Sure, but it’s also a love story, an inspirational story, a historical story…it packs a punch.  As it should since it’s over 800 pages!

I’m no JFK expert but I’ve read a few books and seen a few movies, so I was intrigued by the possibilities.  What if JFK had never been shot?  King weaves a thrilling story and the ending, haunting in its bleakness, will stay with you.  But so will Jake, and Sadie, and Jodie, Texas, and the many other colorful characters that fill the pages.  And if you’ve read It you’ll enjoy the stop in 1958 Derry.

Don’t miss this one!

Orphan #8. Finished 3-17-16, rating 4/5, historical fiction, pub. 2015

In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City’s Lower Eastside. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had.

Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone.  from Goodreads

The synopsis that you just read makes it seem like this showdown with Dr. Solomon is going to be the focal point of the book and it really isn’t.  This book spent just as much or more time on Rachel being a lesbian and what that meant at the time.  Aside from a fairly contrived scene with her getting a little naked and making out with a stranger early on, I liked the way this part of the story was addressed. I was heartbroken for Rachel who continually thought herself unnatural because that’s how society saw her.  I liked the stories, both past and present, but the Dr. Solomon dilemma was just a small part of a very full story.

Rachel was a character who was hard to feel a close connection with, but she did elicit a lot of sympathy.  Watching your mother murdered is not something that most of us can imagine, nor can we really appreciate what it meant to be sent to a Jewish orphanage, housing a thousand kids.  Barium force-fed so that Dr. Solomon could do experiments, children up to 5 kept in their cribs all day long, babies kept in isolation for no reason, this story was full of horrifying scenes.  Rachel’s baldness caused by the radiation from all of the x-rays she was subjected to, just made her life that much more difficult and lonely.

The book was based on true events.  The story of Rachel running away from the orphanage at 15 was compelling and hard to put down, but for me, the fact that this story was based on the author’s own family history made the story so much better.  I liked the story (well, it could have used another page or two at the end) but the author’s notes at the end explaining how this book came to life added a richness to the story after it was told.  I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.

I read this one for a new book group and everyone liked it. It led to some great discussion. I would recommend it and if you interested in the real story behind the fiction you can can visit the author’s site here.