[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/11-22-63_1198.jpg]]
'''''11/22/63''''' is a HistoricalFiction novel written by Creator/StephenKing.

Jake Epping, a divorced high school teacher, discovers from his dying friend a time portal to a date in 1958 at the back of his friend's diner. His friend proposes that he go back in time to stop JohnFKennedy's assassination. There, Jake lives a different life and falls in love all while preparing for the eventual date that will change history.

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!!This story provides examples of:

* TheAllegedCar: When Jake tries to change the past, every single car he touches turns into this.
* AnachronismStew: One of Jake's friends tells him to stop wasting his time and bet the Bears to win the NFC in 1963. The Bears ''did'' win the title that year, but it was still the NF'''L'''. The league didn't merge for years afterwards.
* AndIMustScream: The Guardians. They are not only confined to an extremely small area (in this case over a [[{{Squick}} broken sewer pipe]]), [[spoiler: but the Time Travelers' effects drive them all insane.]]
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: [[spoiler: Jake Epping is Jimla.]]
* ArcWords:
** '''JIMLA!'''
** Life turns on a dime.
** The past harmonizes.
** The past is obdurate.
* TheAlcoholic: The mysterious Yellow-Card Man [[spoiler:pre-suicide]], as well as Jake's ex-wife.
* [[spoiler: BadFuture / CrapsackWorld]]: The result of Kennedy being saved.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Subverted. [[spoiler: Sadie is disfigured and given a GlasgowGrin on one side of her face by her crazy ex-husband. She gets better by the end of the book but still retains a scar.]]
* ButterflyOfDoom: The "butterfly effect" is explicitly mentioned (multiple times) in the novel. RayBradbury 's A Sound of Thunder is named. [[spoiler:It's impossible to make a completely positive change to the past. Positive changes will be accompanied by some negative effect--and a large enough change can [[TimeCrash unravel the very fabric of the universe]].]]
* BystanderSyndrome: Jake notes humorously that the broken sewer pipe never gets fixed in any of the alternate realities.
* CIAEvilFBIGood: ZigZagged on the FBI. [[spoiler: After saving Kennedy, the FBI agent in charge is content to help Jake disappear and gives him a large amount of money to do so. However, in the Crapsack Future, it is revealed that Hoover actually ordered the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.]]
* ContinuityNod: During his stay in Derry, Jake runs into Richie Tozier and Beverly Marsh, two of the "Losers Club" from ''{{It}}''. A certain [[MonsterClown clown]] is referenced as well.
** The number 19 crops in a few places. An example would be Jake's safe deposit box number being 775. This may make this book fit in with The Dark Tower series.
*** One of the cars seen in the [[spoiler:BadFuture]] is a Takura Spirit, also from The Dark Tower series.
** [[{{Christine}} A red Plymouth Fury keeps turning up as well, particularly as it's driven by Sadie's psychotic ex]].
* ContrivedCoincidence: Lampshaded. Situations keep repeating for Jake as the past "harmonizes."
* CoolCar: The portal happens to dump travelers out near a dealership with a killer Ford Sunliner for sale.
* CoolOldLady: Mimi Corcoran.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: [[spoiler: In the BadFuture, Kennedy runs the Vietnam War the same way Bush ran the second Iraq war, with even worse results.]]
* DomesticAbuser: Oswald is one. Frank Dunning is worse.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: When Jake tries to change the past, ever more significant calamities befall him. When he gets close to making a big change, the universe stops dicking around and tries to kill him repeatedly.
* TheFifties: Technically straddles the 50's and 60's, but Central Texas isn't exactly known for being on the forefront of social trends.
* ForTheEvulz: [[spoiler: George de Mohrenschildt basically confesses that he baited Oswald into shooting at Edwin Walker for fun.]]
* GrandfatherParadox: {{Hand Wave}}d. When Jake asks about it, Al just asks what kind of sicko would even want to try? As Jake goes on, it becomes evident that if possible, it would at the least be very, very difficult.
* GraysSportsAlmanac: Al's notes. Some of which are actual sports scores for betting purposes.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: A chunk of the book is Epping keeping a close eye on Lee Harvey Oswald and monitoring his life and relationships with friends and family.
* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Extends it to every major event in history. [[spoiler:It turns out that changing such events can and often ''will'' lead to a slow-but-certain TimeCrash, other nasty side effects notwithstanding. Jake finds this out the [[BadFuture hard]] [[CrapsackWorld way]].]]
* ItsForABook: Jake's original cover story as to why he was traveling to Dallas. Eventually, he actually started writing a book.
* JohnFKennedy: Saving him from death is the main plot point.
* JustInTime: [[spoiler:Jake stops Oswald in the very last minute.]]
* TheMafia: Jake wins a few longshot bets from them to fund his time in the past. [[spoiler: It burns him when he doesn't account for their ''interstate'' connections.]]
* MommyIssues: Oswald has these.
* MundaneUtility: Al Templeton initially uses the time portal to get meat at a cheap price in 1958 to make a profit in the present.
* MyBelovedSmother: Oswald's mother, Marguerite.
* MysteryMeat: Subverted. It's assumed by everyone that the reason why Al Templeton's meat is so cheap is because he's using roadkill. In reality it's because he's getting it from 1958.
* OhCrap: When Jake [[ItMakesSenseInContext hears cheerleaders chanting "Jim-La!".]]
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Averted. While traveling through the Jim Crow-era South, Jake notices that the "Colored" toilets at a gas station are a stump over a stream surrounded by poison ivy. He mentions that he thinks about it every time he starts to romanticize the past.
* PortalToThePast: At the back of a diner. Turns out that's where the owner is [[MundaneUtility getting an amazing deal on meat]].
* ResetButton: Anyone who travels through the portal overwrites the actions of the previous person. [[spoiler:Zack Lang, a.k.a. the Green Card Man, hints that there may be a lot more work involved offstage.]]
* RippleEffectProofMemory: Affects anyone in immediate proximity to the portal. Although [[spoiler:having to reconcile multiple alternate realities can be bad for your mental health.]]
* [[RussianGuySuffersMost Russian Girl Suffers Most]]: Lee's Russian bride Marina certainly has it worst.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: That's the plan at least.
* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:Jake rescues Kennedy in the last moment, but Sadie is killed. When he returns to the present, he finds out that this only made things a lot worse, and changing history always does. So, he goes back in time once more, which resets the whole thing.]]
* ShoutOut: The male protagonist of a TimeTravel story falls in love with a girl whose (married) name is "Clayton". Said Time Traveller also funds their stay by gambling on longshot sports upsets with future information. Does this remind you of [[Film/BackToTheFuture anything]]?
* ShownTheirWork: King did extensive research on what life in the 1950s was like and even interviewed historians about what life may have been like had Kennedy not been shot.
* TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: Al Templeton used the portal to get meat from the same day in 1958 and make a profit selling it for cheap in the present. As a result, everyone assumes that he's using roadkill in his burgers.
* StarCrossedLovers: Jake and Sadie.
* TimePolice: There are 'guardians' of respective time portals. Drastic changes to the past make them [[spoiler:, along with the time-space continuum itself]] worse for the wear.
* TimeTravel
* TimeyWimeyBall: How time travel works can be rather... confusing at [[IncrediblyLamePun times]].
* TownWithADarkSecret: Jake feels this hanging over him all during the time he spends in [[{{It}} Derry.]] On the other hand, [[spoiler: Jodie, TX]] may be the first small town to ever appear in a Stephen King novel which ''isn't'' an example of this.
* TwoLinesNoWaiting: In addition to stopping Kennedy's assassination, a large chunk of the novel is spent on Jake's life and various relationships while living in the '50s.
* UnusualEuphemism: "Poundcake".
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: One of King's earlier ideas for the story:
-->I'd like to tell a time-travel story where this guy finds a diner that connects to 1958... you always go back to the same day. So one day he goes back and just stays. Leaves his 2007 life behind. His goal? To get up to November 22, 1963, and stop Lee Harvey Oswald. He does, and he's convinced he's just FIXED THE WORLD. But when he goes back to '07, the world's a nuclear slag-heap. Not good to fool with Father Time. So then he has to go back again and stop himself... only he's taken on a fatal dose of radiation, so it's a race against time.
* WhoShotJFK: One of the reasons why Jake just doesn't kill Lee Harvey Oswald right off the bat is because of the conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy's assassination and the possibility that another person may have been involved. [[spoiler: In the end, it's just Oswald working alone.]] In the afterword, King notes that after reading all he could on the subject, this is the situation he considers by far the most likely.
* YearInsideHourOutside: No matter how long one spends in the past, returning through the portal dumps you two minutes after you left.