From Goodreads: If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you? Would the consequences be what you hoped?
Jake Epping, 35, teaches high-school English in Lisbon Falls, Maine, and cries reading the brain-damaged janitor's story of childhood Halloween massacre by their drunken father. On his deathbed, pal Al divulges a secret portal to 1958 in his diner back pantry, and enlists Jake to prevent the 11/22/1963 Dallas assassination of American President John F. Kennedy. Under the alias George Amberson, our hero joins the cigarette-hazed full-flavored world of Elvis rock'n'roll, Negro discrimination, and freeway gas-guzzlers without seat belts. Will Jake lurk in impoverished immigrant slums beside troubled loner Lee Harvey Oswald, or share small-town friendliness with beautiful high school librarian Sadie Dunhill, the love of his life?
Thoughts: It has been a long time since I've read a Stephen King novel. I use to love them, but then it became a case of "I like your old stuff better than your new stuff." Apart from a few exceptions such as The Green Mile I pretty much stopped reading anything after Misery. However, several blogs I read said this was good - and a few of them were like me in their King attitude.
It was good. I enjoyed the romance, the intrigue, the flow of King's writing. He is good at writing a page turner - needing to know what happens next. After I finished it though - this is the question that did my head in:
Have the descendants of JFK or Oswald read it and what do they think?
Do they wish history could be changed? Would they care about what the long term consequences were if it gave them extra time with their loved one?
King still has life in him. I think he has done the horror thing and is best off steering away from it, although I have also heard good things about Dr Sleep? Maybe a King revival for me in 2014...