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11.22.63 A Look Back Book Review Part One
When you find that one great book, it consumes your life. Your thoughts, your discussions, you live and breathe the novel as if it was the only thing that mattered on the planet. The first parts of 11.22.63 by Stephen King are so riveting you literally cruise through them, like you are on the mile a minute highway, hanging on every word. In this first part we will explore the life of Jake Epping before the rabbit hole, before Texas, and before the love of his life.
Jake is a high school english teacher, divorced from his alcoholic wife whose life is impacted greatly as summer vacation gets into full gear by two men. The first is Harry Dunning, the school janitor who is working on his GED. Harry writes a gut wrenching essay for Jake’s class one that actually makes him and the reader take pause as to how this man’s life went so horribly wrong on the fateful day, Halloween night 1958. The second man is one Al Templeton, owner of Al’s diner. No not that Al’s diner from Happy Days although one has to wonder? This does take place in the late 50s after all.
Al has a secret in back of his diner, a time portal that will let you do the time warp again and again and again because each trip into the portal or rabbit hole, lands you on the same sunny day in September 1958. Stranger yet, is when you return to the present only 2 minutes have passed. You can take things back and forth with you present to past and past to present, but each time you go back into the past it is a complete reset. Everything you did on the previous trip is erased and you have to start all over from square one.
Al entrusts to Jake his plan the one thing he hopes to accomplish with this gift of a time traveling portal. If he can prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the whole world would change because LBJ would never become president, we would never go to NAM or Korea. Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn’t be shot. It is literally history’s watershed moment. The one problem is Al has cancer and won’t make it to the end of the week.
Jake arms himself for a test run to see just how feasible changing the past would be by attempting to prevent the gruesome events of that fateful halloween night for Harry and his family. Along the way Jake makes a few friends and a few enemies as well, including a run in with one crazy clown in Derry Maine. Will Jake succeed? Will he accept Al’s proposal? And did the number 19 show up in the book already? Give a listen to part 1 of our book review.
Over the coming weeks as we prepare for the release of 11.22.63 on Hulu February 15th 2016, Troy and Wayne will share with you their thoughts on the 11/22/63 Novel by King, their favorite parts, characters, story elements and more. Plus they will take a look at each of the actors tasked with bringing the world of the 1960s and Jake Epping to life. Grab a cat burger and a can of Moxie soda and enjoy this brief introduction to our new podcast here on Golden Spiral Media.
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Each week of the event series 11.22.63 on Hulu, will take a deep look at both the minor and major plot lines to this fantastic series and book. Be sure to subscribe and review us in iTunes, Stitcher, or through whichever podcast app you prefer. Also check out our other Golden Spiral Media Podcasts.
Thanks for listening! We’ll talk to you soon. Remember the past is obdurate, and life turns on a dime.
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