10 Best Non-Horror Stephen King Stories You Must Read
1. 11/22/63
If you could, would you travel back in time and kill Hitler?
It's a well-known thought experiment, with many answering 'yes'. Understandably - why wouldn't you want to save millions of lives? But... would you really make a difference in the long-run? And would you make things better down the road... or worse?
Here, King applies the time travel conundrum to another significant historical event - the assassination of American president John F. Kennedy in 1962 - and has protagonist Jake Epping given the opportunity to make a change.
English teacher Jake learns that his friend Al Templeton is dying of cancer. He owns a restaurant, inside which lies a portal to the past. To 11:58 AM on the 9th September, 1958, to be specific. All the time-traveling Al had done via via this wormhole had taken its toll on his body. Understandably skeptical, Jake enters the portal and spends an hour in the past. When he returns, only two minutes have passed in the novel's setting in 2011. That's how it works, no matter how long is spent on the other side.
Al tells Jake that he had been putting together a plan to prevent the assassination of JFK. It's a noble cause, and one Jake takes on after Al's death. He uses Al's resources on the assassination to plan his moves, and makes his way into the past, where he will have five years to prepare.
From a story-telling perspective, this development is a breath of fresh air. Being stuck in 1958, there's no convenient mobile phones or Internet to deal with the troubles Jake runs into, technological developments which either hamper or hinder stories in modern settings.
Naturally, things do go exactly to plan, and Jake falls in love with Sadie Dunhill, a school librarian. This prevents a few ethical dilemmas: does Jake stay in the past with the woman he loves? What if he brought her to the future with him? How does saving JFK affect all this?
Some people might scoff at the idea of a time travel-based love story. It sounds like something you'd find in the romance section of an airport book store. But if you've ever felt any resonance with any of King's other characters, then you owe it to yourself to read what many fans consider King's finest work.