This is the first book I have read by Stephen King and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am not a fan of horror or supernatural and have stayed away from King's writing in the past. However, the subject matter of this book, along with the publicity it was again receiving because of the mini-series based on it, made me pick it up one rainy day. I was hooked and found it hard to put it down. You may know the story's premise, a man goes through a worm hole into the past, and he is determined to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Once you accept that such a thing is possible, then the book becomes so much more. The devil is in the details.
The story begins in current time in Lisbon Falls, Maine. Al Templeton, dying of lung cancer convinces Jake, a burnt out teacher, newly divorced, to finish a job that he had begun. Al runs a diner with a back pantry which contains a portal to the past. Through a series of events, Jake finds himself thrust into the year 1958. Two stories ensue. First he embarks on a mission to right a wrong done to a friend of Al, whose future was inadvertently messed up by Al's well-intentioned meddling. When Jake returns to the past a second time, he is on a mission to assassinate Lee Harvey Oswald. Before he can do this, he must solve the mystery of whether Oswald acted alone or was part of a conspiracy. Since the year he returns to is always 1958, he must live in the past until 1963. This may not be your cup of tea, but rest assured, the story becomes very interesting quickly and works its way to a climax that is full of suspense.
Stephen King presents these years of Eisenhower's 50s so perfectly, that if you were alive in those times, you would feel you are in a time machine yourself. His writing is perfectly paced for the times. Everyday life moved slowly as you may remember. It isn't long before you begin to feel the creeping nostalgia of familiarity. Grocery stores stock long forgotten products. Cars still have fins and guzzle cheap gas. People are not suspicious and welcome strangers. For readers not familiar with this period, the book provides a wonderfully accurate social picture of the past of your parents and grandparents. King struggled with this book for 30 years. It was a labor of love, and historically he does not take liberties.
Our hero gets a job teaching in Jodi, Texas, despite the suspicions of his colleagues, and he falls in love with a delightfully drawn character named Sadie, the school librarian. It isn't long before he discovers the ease of living in this slower paced life full of simple pleasures. But, our hero has a problem to solve. How does he pull off an action without disturbing what will come in the future. He struggles with the "butterfly effect." Is it possible to change history without disastrous consequences. There is the rub and the theme of the book. There is a strange character called the Yellow Card Man who seems to guard the portal back to real time. He appears only briefly but is the personification of the obdurate past, the past which refuses to be changed as our hero soon finds out.
I recommend this book to all who are looking for an entertaining imaginative book which cleverly whisks the reader through the portal of time. Life was sweeter then, or was it??
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