Book of the Week

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Max Clapham

Stephen King’s 11/22/63, a novel about a man who attempts to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy, by entering 1958 America through a portal in the back of a burger restaurant, is as far removed from reality as any other time-travel story. Despite being mainly a science-fiction novel, however, the story can also be viewed as part historical fiction and part alternate history, bringing with it some fascinating insights into the nature of historical memory. 

One of the first aspects of historical memory that the novel contends with is nostalgia for a period in the past, and how this can obscure the true reality of the past. When Jake Epping, the protagonist, makes his first trip back in time, he is hit with a wave of ‘50s nostalgia; the food and drink tastes better, free from modern preservatives; the cars drive better; Elvis blares from the radios. Though the character of Epping is not old enough to have lived through this period, Stephen King himself was born in 1947, and much of the descriptions of life in the 1950s appears to echo King’s own nostalgia for his childhood.

King employs this nostalgic description in order to contrast it with some of the uglier realities of 1950s America. Whilst travelling through North Carolina, Epping encounters segregated public facilities, a reminder that whilst King was growing up in Maine, African Americans in the South were still being treated as second-class citizens. The contrast conveys how serious historical events and injustices can be obscured in the memories of individuals, blinded by nostalgia.

The most interesting exploration of the nature of history and historical memory in the novel comes from the perspective of Al Templeton, the owner of the restaurant who first discovers the time portal. On discovering the portal, Templeton decides that he should travel back in time in order to prevent Kennedy's murder, a mission which he passes on to Epping after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Templeton explains to Epping that JFK must be kept alive because he would prevent the expansion of the Vietnam War and the domestic social unrest that ensued as a result of opposition to the war, changing the course of history for the better. This view of Kennedy as a heroic political figure is a common one amongst the American public - a 2023 Gallup poll found that an astonishing 90% of Americans retrospectively approved of his presidency.

King challenges such an assessment of history. After Epping foils the assassination, he travels back to the present day to see if he has succeeded in changing the course of history for the better. [SPOILER ALERT] He discovers that Kennedy won re-election in 1964, but failed to pass the Civil Rights Act, leaving segregation in the South. Not long after, the Segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace was elected President, ending the war in Vietnam with an atomic bomb. The world that Epping discovers is a nuclear hellscape. 

By presenting such a shocking alternate future, King is not suggesting that Kennedy’s survival would have led to a similar scenario. Rather, he is highlighting the fragile nature of historical events, and how narrowly the world avoided nuclear catastrophe during the Cold War. It is also a repudiation of the selective historical memory of Kennedy’s presidency; most Americans easily forget that Kennedy was an anti-communist hawk who would likely have deepened American involvement in Vietnam, and may well have failed to push through civil rights legislation as effectively as his successor, Lyndon Johnson. 
It can be comforting for many Americans to reflect nostalgically on the 1950s and ‘60s, wondering what could have been had Kennedy lived. King confronts this nostalgia with a reminder of the realities of racial segregation, and a truly terrifying alternate future which suggests it is perhaps better we do not know what might have happened…