BOOK REVIEW | FICTION | STEPHEN KING
11.22.63 by Stephen King-An Audiobook Review
A historical fiction thriller of a great American tragedy from the master of horror
A big story needs many pages, and 11.22.63 stretches almost as far as the years since the great American tragedy of the Kennedy assassination. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but this is an epic tale, and at 849 pages, King spares no words.
I chose the audiobook version of this historical fiction, and narrator Craig Wasson’s voice followed me around the backyard garden, kitchen, and even underneath my old Ford F350 as I worked, listening to the 30.4-hour telling of the tale.
Before getting to the meat of the story, I must remark on the fantastic narration. King has a heavy handful of characters, from the instigator, Al Templeton, an aging and ill cook at a local diner where the story begins in smalltown Lisbon Falls, Maine, through to characters in Jody, Ft. Worth and Dallas, Texas, and the narrator, Wasson gets the accents, dialects and drawls marvellously on the mark. My favourite voices were the very Alan Arkin-like pawn shop owner and a solid impersonation of JFK. My wife remarked that she never knew who was visiting when she walked through the door, but it was someone different each time.
