Friday, December 30, 2011

Beginning ~ at a graduation

11/22/63 ~ by Stephen King, 2011, fiction (Maine and Texas)
Harry Dunning graduated with flying colors.  I went to the little GED ceremony in the LHS gym, at his invitation.  He really had no one else, and I was happy to do it.
With JFK on my mind, this beginning sounds boring, but I'll keep reading because I lived through that day and really, really, really want to see what Stephen King will do with this revised history of his.  Here's a summary of the book:
"It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes.  He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away — a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer.  Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life — like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963 — turning on a dime.  Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret:  his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958.  And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession — to prevent the Kennedy assassination."
If you want to share the first lines of a book you are reading, click on the link and visit Katy at A Few More Pages.  (Today's list.)

Browse there to find interesting books for your own reading list.  And don’t forget that Katy and all the contributors to this meme (including me) love comments.

5 comments:

Helen's Book Blog said...

I've seen this one around and am interested to see what you think of it. I've never read a Stephen King before

Yvonne @ Fiction Books Reviews said...

Hi Bonnie,

I'm not sure that those first lines on their own would make me want to read on, but when you add in your 'potted' synopsis of the story, it suddenly becomes much more interesting.

It seems like quite a new twist to Stephen King's writing and I shall watch for your review with interest, to see how he deals with it.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year.

Yvonne.

Rikki said...

This sounds interesting. I am sure Stephen King will put a different spin to the story.

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

I have this book and can't wait to start reading it. I, too, lived through those times and I'm eager to see what King has done with the material.

I've heard good things about it!

Here's MY BOOK BEGINNINGS POST and
MY WEBSITE

JC Jones said...

The book was a recommendation for our Science Fiction Book Club but it did not make the final 12. Like you I lived through that day and wonder if King will change history.