Book 1 Project- 11/22/63

     11/22/63 by Stephen King needs something big, something bold, something eye- catching to gain a wider audience and help fans extend their interaction with this book.  And I have just the perfect thing! Throughout Jake’s travels back in the 1950s and 60s he visits various cities and towns. These locations play a key role in the story and have immense impacts on Jake’s life. King provided many rich, lavish details about these places, painting pictures in the reader’s mind. What if these images in people’s minds could be brought to life? We should create a tour that would take people through several of the cities that Jake journeys to in his wild adventure into the past.

     Cities important to the story: Derry, Jodie, and Dallas, would be those we recreate. We would also recreate the “rabbit hole” and make it the entrance to the cities, giving people the sense that they are actually going through a time machine and into a whole other world. Jake’s iconic Sunliner will also be featured. In each city the buildings, shops, and houses that were key to the story will be recreated. We not only want to capture the physical essence of the cities but the emotional as well. That is why we will have a staff that will act as the important characters in the book. They will act like the characters and use dialogue from the book. All of these aspects will combine to make the people feel as if they went through  time with Jake.           

     The first city people will tour once they step through the “rabbit hole” is Derry since the cities will be arranged in the order in which they appeared in the book. Derry will be an attention grabber because in the book Jake’s time in Derry was quite suspenseful and everywhere he went he had to have his guard up. When he first entered the city, he wasn’t too fond of it. “This was the town where Harry Dunning had grown up, and I hated it from the first. No concrete reason; I just did. The down town shopping area, situated at the bottom of three steep hills, felt pitlike and claustrophobic. My cherry- red Ford seemed like the brightest thing on the street, a distracting (and unwelcome, judging by most glances it was attracting) splash of color amid the black Plymouths, brown Chevrolets, and grimy delivery trucks. Running through the center of town was a canal filled almost to the top of its moss- splotched concrete retaining walls with black water.” (King 121). This location is where Jake really was changed. Some of the places built in the city will be 379 Kossuth Street, The Center Street Market, The Lamplighter, and the Longview Cemetery. The featured characters would be Frank Dunning and his family, Beverly Marsh, Ritchie Tozier, Chaz Frati and Bill Turcotte.

     The next city on the tour will be Jodie. This will be the big attraction because just as that small town touched Jake in ways he could never have imagined, I think it touched every reader in their own way too. This is where Jake was truly happy in the past,  it’s where he felt he truly belonged. He described it as home saying, “And Jodie was good—good for me. In Derry I was an outsider, but Jodie was home. Here’s home: the smell of the sage and the way the hills flush orange with Indian blanket in the summer. The faint taste of tobacco on Sadie’s tongue and the squeak of the oiled wood floorboards in my homeroom.”(King 398). We want the people to feel Jake’s strong emotions here. We will do this through the presence of DCHS, Mercedes Street  Fort Worth, and Bee Tree Lane. As well as the characters Sadie Dunhill, Deke Simmons, Miz Ellie, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marina Oswald, June Oswald, George de Mohrenschildt, Mike Coslaw, Bobbi Jill, and John Clayton.

     The last city will be Dallas. The places in Dallas would include the Texas School Book Depository, Elm Street, and 214 West Neely Street. People taking the tour will be able to share in Jake’s feeling when they see the Depository, “The Book Depository wasn't a ruin, but it conveyed the same sense of sentient menace. I remembered coming on that submerged, soot-blackened smokestack, lying in the weeds like a giant prehistoric snake dozing in the sun. I remembered looking into its dark bore, so large I could have walked into it. And I remembered feeling that something was in there. Something alive. Something that wanted me to walk into it. So I could visit. Maybe for a long, long time.”(King 293) The characters would include JFK, Jackie Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald and James P. Hosty.  These are names that people will know, not just those who have read the book.  This would help intrigue them to read about those familiar to them.

       Fans of the book will love this opportunity to really dive into the book even more and this will attract new readers because, even if you have not read the book, the tour would be a fascinating adventure for any person at any age!