A Time to Remember

Stanley Shapiro's book was so captivating that I read it in two nights. A man meets an amicable Noble Prize winner, who has invented a time machine in 1985, and he convinces the scientist to send him back to 1963 to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and thus (it is averred) prevent the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the subsequent death of the man's brother. There are lots of twists and turns, with alternative-history consequences--all of which are fascinating! What would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had not become president? Which presidents would have succeeded Kennedy, if he had not died? What if Lee Harvey Oswald had lived? A note: Shapiro won an academy award in 1959 as a co-author of the original screeplay for the Doris Day/Rock Hudson film Pillow Talk (beating out The 400 Blows, North by Northwest, and Wild Strawberries--some of the greatest films in history)!

Stanley Shapiro's book about a man who goes back in time to try to stop the Kennedy assassination is a fast read and a good one. Shapiro, whose only other novel (that I've been able to locate) is a strange and well written horror fantasy called "Simon's Soul," wrote the movie "Running Against Time" which was based on "A Time to Remember." The movie was very good... it cut out a few of the more depressing parts and changed the ending, but was otherwise faithful. Yes, the story about Kennedy pulling us out of Vietnam and keeping bad things across the following decades from happening might not be entirely plausible, but the story doesn't suffer because of it. Check out the book "Time Out of Mind" by Peter Delacorte, which tells a time travel theory about how much better the world would have been if they went back in time and killed Reagan. Authors' political views aside, both of these time travel books were very entertaining and well written.