November 22, 1963
Adam Braver
Tin House Books
<p><i>November 22, 1963</i> chronicles the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. It begins that morning, with Jackie Kennedy in a Fort Worth hotel, about to leave for Dallas. Her airplane trip out of Dallas after the assassination forms the connecting arc for the book, which ends with Mrs. Kennedy's return to the White House at 4 a.m. Interwoven throughout are stories of real people intimately connected with that day: a man who shares cigarettes with the First Lady outside the trauma room; a motorcycle policeman flanking the entourage; Abe Zabruder, who caught the assassination on film; the White House servants following Mrs. Kennedy's orders to begin planning a funeral modeled on Lincoln's; and the morticians overseeing President Kennedy's autopsy. Adam Braver's brilliantly constructed historical fiction explores the intersection of stories and memories, and reveals how together, they have come to represent and mythologize that fateful day.</p>