Is a new Stephen King book news?
I’m sort of a mixed mind on the subject. Actually I must admit that even though I’ve disliked the majority of his work over the past decade-plus, it’s still an event when something new surfaces from up near Bangor.
I’m doing a rather exhausting series on GUY.com (launching next week, officially!) about the man’s work but when the email arrived in my inbox yesterday there was still a spark of that excitement that I used to feel when (before the internet) I’d enter a book store and see his name and a title on their “coming soon” wall.
11/22/63 is an alternate history tale about what would happen if JFK didn’t die. The synopsis from King’s site:
“Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.”
November 8th we’ll see. I still want to believe in Steve. I really want to.
8 comments
I thought the sequel to The Shining was next on his plate?
I thought the Shining thing was next too. This sounds awfully weird, but I prefer it to more Shining. This past decade has been a bit spotty, but Under the Dome was so good it forgives everything. It’s King’s Munich, really.
Agreed, Under the Dome was fantastic. There’s life in the old dog yet.
Is it wrong that the only King book I’ve ever read is “On Writing”? I truly love the guy for how prolific he is, however; I’ve never read any fiction by the man.
I always have liked his short stories better then his novels. So many times, the novels start out strong, then fizzle out.
I, too, have found a lot of his stuff spotty in the last ten years or so. But I did enjoy Full Dark, No Stars. Good work. I will have to check out Under The Dome.
Guys… Duma Key was terrific, I thought. The very ending disappointed, but getting there was a thrill. He still has the best sense of character of any genre writer in the business. This book sounds fantastic.
Under the Dome was an absolute blast from beginning to end – up there with his very best.
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