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A Masterpiece!

Awesome story!! Wow! Stephen blows my mind. His prose is so easy to follow and he is so clear what he is getting across to me, the reader. It knows how to set up a character.

There are a lot of bells and whistles in this story and its draw is Lee Oswald and the shooting of JFK. Yet, this story is really a love story. King doesn't write many love stories, but at heart, this book is a love story between Jake Epping/George Amberson and Sadie Dunhill. It's a beautiful relationship the two have and the love story holds the whole book together, in my opinion.

Jake goes back in time to stop the assassination of JFK. He lives in 2011 and he finds a strange time-hole that goes to 1958 and he has to live life in the past before he can stop Lee. He moves to the Dallas area to a little town called Jodie, TX where he substitute teaches and becomes a full time staff. The librarian is Sadie Dunhill and they quickly become friends. Half of the story almost is their story and about the kids at school.

Stephen is a master a character writing. If you want to know how to write a character, then Stephen is the master to follow. He uses that to build this community of Jodie and I was so pulled in. I almost didn't care about the rest, but it's so intricately woven together that it's all one thread.

As readers, especially someone like me who didn't know a whole lot about Oswald, Stephn has done his research and he packs this books with historical facts. He plays here and there with timing and he lets us know in the afterward, but mostly, he sticks to the facts. I am amazed how much is known about the spouse abusing messed up man. King really brings the humanity to Marina, his wife and their child and he even shows the humanity of Lee at moments with his daughter. Marina put up with a horror show.

The theme of this book is 'the past harmonizes' and Stephen drives this point home to good effect. It becomes it's own harmonic in the book and it helps to bring all the stories going on together. I'm telling you, this is a layered masterpiece from one of the most gifted writers of our time. He weaves historical fact with fiction with historical fiction with time travel with a love story for the ages.

The idea of time travel is also dealt with. What happens if time is changed? What would that do to the world? Would a good intention to change the past bring about the changes we want? These are the questions explored in this book.

The time travel is unique to what I've seen and I love it. In a dinner in the town Jake lives in, there is a "rabbit hole" and this particular hole leads to 1958. Everytime you go in, it's like a reset and anything you changed before is undone and it's always the exact same time you come out in. It is a wonderful device Stephen came up with. Jake's friend hatches this plan to save JFK and Jake is the one who has to carry it out. It's fascinating and it makes you wonder if a "rabbit hole might be possible and how interesting to make that happen. It's a lovely device used in the story and all kinds of choices happen from it. You can go back and see the changes you made and then go back and tweek it.

This is now one of my Top 5 Favorite Stephen King novels. I really think it's a masterpiece and he is at the top of his game here. I wish I had read it sooner, but I got it now. Also, I got my tome in this year, barely. It also makes me wonder how many more masterpieces Stephen has in him. He seems to have one or more a decade. I guess 45 years of writing daily does pay off in a big way. I also have a harmonic resonance with Stephen and his work. I was born in 1974 and he published Carrie in 1974. I find that interesting.

I think my goal is to make 2020 a Stephen King year and I want to get caught up with his bibliography again. I will see if I can do a book a month or so. There are some big ones left to read so that might be asking too much.