Why a Booktrail?
2011, 1958 – 1963: Imagine if you could go back in time and try to save JFK. Would you? Could you?
11.22.63
What you need to know before your trail
Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, steps inside a regular run of the mill American diner and goes back to one of the darkest days in US history.
He realises that the president of the USA, John F Kennedy is still alive – it’s 1958 and no one seems to know of what is about to happen. But Jake does. As he finds out more and gets into more danger, it s it possible that he is the only one who can try to change history?
He soon meets a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life – a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
But what happens if history is altered. One splash in the pond ripples out and has many unforeseen consequences.
Travel Guide
Lisbon Falls
A quaint small time and remote kind of town where the main character of the story lives. There’s a diner in town where he normally eats but when he finds that this is a diner with a link to the past, he starts on a journey like never before. This is a (book) trail to the past and via the medium of time travel. Imagine finding an old portal in the back of a diner which leads to the past and when he goes there, what can he do?
The time portal opens in 1958. But once you start changing history, it’s not just one event or one day you change. One thing has an effect on the other and who can really tell where it will all end? History could be altered on not just a local or national way but an international one.
Dallas Texas – JFK museum
Jake’s adventures into the past becomes a mission to prevent the assassination of JFK in 1963 which took place on 11.22 1963 and therefore the title of the book becomes a kind of Challenge and beacon for Jake to strive for.
Trouble is what part of the day can you change and will this have an impact of not just what happened to the President but to someone else and in some other way? Going back to Dallas in this time travel way is thrilling and dangerous as the reader, knowing what is going to happen, what did happen, but wondering if Jake will somehow manage to shine the light on Dallas for another reason altogether. With such an iconic event and time period in the novel, of a real life event which many people can still remember, this is a thrillingly dangerous time travelling opportunity.
As well as the event of 1963, there’s the time and period detail such as the lindy bopping, the corner shops, the lack of technology and mobile phones. The portrayal of a simpler time. But one where American landscape would change for ever.
Streetview Maps
A) Maine - Lisbon Falls - Main Street
D) Texas - Dealey Plaza
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: 11.22.63
Author/Guide: Stephen King Destination: Linden Falls, Maine, Dallas Departure Time: 2000s, 1953 -1963
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