A few years before Stephen King published his first book, “Carrie,” in 1974, he was struck by an idea for a historical novel. After calling this project “Split Track” in his head, King began working on it but soon realized that preliminary research required more time and dedication than he could spare at that moment. Although he abandoned the idea in favor of ideas that were easier to actualize, King would eventually return to this historical premise and tell a time-travel story that loops back to a particular date. This was his 2011 novel “11/22/63,” wherein high school English teacher Jake Epping gets the opportunity to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on November 22, 1963. As with every time travel tale with consequences, the aftereffects of messing with history are not pretty.
Even a cursory glance at “11/22/63” makes King’s initial anxieties about time period-focused research apparent, as his exploration of late ’50s and early ’60s America is as meticulous as it can be. Moreover, the subject matter of this book was a tad different from his usual horror-flavored tales, where a mix of historical fact and speculative fiction create an audacious, dazzling effect. To no one’s surprise, the novel got adapted into a Hulu miniseries a few years later, and the show’s title was stylized as “11.22.63.” Here, Jake Amberson (James Franco) travels back to 1960 after stumbling upon a magical closet inside a diner, although this Narnia-style adventure takes a very dark turn once Jake sets out to alter the course of history.
The series is pretty well-liked, and it succeeds in portraying how the past actively engineers obstacles to resist change, allowing events to turn strange or macabre. Whenever Jake is at odds with the flow of time, “11.22.63” comes alive, especially when the fallout from temporal tampering becomes unmanageable. But does the miniseries warrant a sequel?
Stephen King shares his thoughts about a 11.22.63 sequel series
While the “11.22.63” miniseries takes some intriguing turns, it’s (understandably) unable to incorporate the micro-nuances of Jake’s quest to change history due to its limiting format. As mentioned above, King painstakingly fleshed out the historical details of the assassination and every aspect involved in his original novel, which heavily informs the parts where Jake keeps tabs on Lee Harvey Oswald (Daniel Webber). Most of this did not make it to the series, although a potential sequel could revisit these crucial details (if not deal with a completely different part of history in a fresh light).
The person whose opinion matters the most here is King, and the author expressed his thoughts about a potential sequel during a 2016 Facebook Q&A for “11.22.63” (via IndieWire). This is what King had to say:
“I’d love to revisit Jake and Sadie [a fellow teacher Jake falls for in the past], and also revisit the rabbit hole that dumps people into the past, but sometimes it’s best not to go back for a second helping. If I were to write a sequel, it would be about Jake trying to stop unscrupulous people from using the rabbit hole to change the past in some terrible way.”
Based on King’s answers during the Q&A, it is clear that the author thinks that the crux of the series is Jake and Sadie’s relationship, as they exemplify the very definition of “doomed by the narrative” despite being endgame. When asked why the closet in the diner (which is a wormhole in the novel) only leads to 11/22/1963, King gave the following explanation:
“I thought the rabbit hole (or the wormhole, as you call it) was a cosmic mistake, a basic flaw in the universe. Because of all the potential paradoxes, time travel would be incredibly dangerous — enough to make nuclear bombs look like toys in comparison. As for Jake and Sadie … made for each other, of course. I never doubted it.”
Although a “11.22.63” sequel is not in the works at the moment, a potential brand-new adaptation could do the novel justice. Until then, we will have to keep grappling with the Grandfather Paradox.
