#Spooktober ‘It’ by Stephen King

About the book…

Welcome to Derry, Maine …

It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real …

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name

‘It’ by Stephen King was first published in 1986 and is generally regarded as his magnum opus. Not only the largest of his stand alone novels in terms of size, it feels to me like it is the drawing of a line under his books on the nature of childhood, and the pain of growing up.

Seven children, the Loser’s Club, are drawn to each other in the town of Derry as they realise that something is very wrong in this town, Each is an outsider due to a variety of circumstances:whether by poverty, skin tone, single parent households, religion or physical size, each one is singled out as a victim by the local bullies.

As the summer holidays start in June 1958, each of them shares a back story which details how they came to meet, form and ultimately walk away from the other Losers. The stories are told in flashback, starting with the death of Bill’s brother, Georgie, and moving forward to the 1980’s where the only one to stay behind, Mike Hanlon, rings all the others telling them to come back.

As you read, not only are you struck with the sense of creeping dread which infilitrates the grownup Losers, you are thrust back to the worst times of their lives where the worry of whether a girl or boy likes you is knocked to one side by a predatory killer who is thinning out the town’s children.

The book is split between the childhood and adulthood characters of Stan, Ben,Bev,Mike,Richie,Eddie and Bill, interspersed with the Derry Interludes, which are excerpts from the historical narrative that i think Mike, who became the town librarian, is writing. It becomes clear that there is something which is wrong with this town, and that has lingered for quite some time.

The adults who grow up and stay there seem to be disconnected from what was going on-in any other town the sheer amount of missing children would be covered by news crews and documentary teams,but here, despite the overwhelming layer of fear and a curfew, there is no sense of urgency to find the child killer, more a reluctant acceptance that this is the way that it is.

As a reader, who first had the copy illustrated above when I was 15, I totally got this, it is damned difficult to get adults to listen to you let alone pay attention to the things which are important to you,The sense of frustration, then the realisation that they are the only ones who can do anything about It is so incredibly relatable. And as you revisit the book after adulthood, your persective changes, and I think this is why it is such a perennial classic-you often find that It, in the form of the 1990’s mini series is a gateway to King’s work for many. And obviously, with the 2 part movie adaptation by Andy Muschietti in 2017 and 2019, even more teens and youths are coming to find Pennywise haunting the late hours of the night.

The children desperately try to get anyone to listen to them, but the parents are so caught up in their own worries that they have no emotional space for the children. They have to grow up quickly and take on the monster themselves. The twist is that their innocence which makes them brave even whilst wishing they were grownups with power is flipped when they are grownups and still find themselves powerless.

There are stand out horror scenes throughout the novel which haunted my dreams as a teen such as Ben walking home from the library, Patrick Hockstetter and the abandoned fridge, Eddie Corcoran and the canal which really remind you of the power that King has when he nails the sense of terror creeping up your spine.

What makes It such a wondeful and timeless horror classic are the perennial themes of growing up, the loss of innocence so keenly reflected in ‘The Body’ and the moments of horror the equal of anything he has created in ‘Pet Sematary’ or ‘‘The Shining’. In Pennywise he has made a monster that has scared decades of teens and adults.

There is so much that can be pulled out of the novel, without even touching on the adaptations or the seminal audiobook adaptation which I lived on the train journeys to work 2 years ago, and needed days to recover from (100% thoroughly recommend this if you have an Audible credit burning a hole in your pocket)

One day I hope someone writes at length about all the symbolism and nuances in ‘It’, there is so much that a plain enthusiastic reader like me can never come close to touching, It’s my favourite of King’s novels in so many ways but I think the principle factor for me is the way that it changes when you read it as an adult. As a teen I rushed through the ‘Interludes’ to get to ‘the good stuff’ , but as an adult, I definitely took my time and really loved not only how this town was created in the same way as King did with ‘‘Salem’s Lot’. That kind of world building is quintessential King and also reveals so much about Mike Hanlon, the last to join the Losers and the one who is most often overlooked in the adaptations.

I thoroughly recommend ‘It’ for multiple reasons-the scares, the sense of friendship, the world building, the story telling, the relatability of small town life and how, when you finish, you have the feeling of having lived through it. Don’t let the size put you off, try to read as few spoilers as possible and if you have seen either, or both, adaptations of the book then this will still be a totally fresh experience.

‘It’ feels like a love letter to his oft referred to , Constant Reader, and it has become such a part of the pop culture that many people feel they may have read it but I would recommend switching off the phone, getting a copy-available via all good booksellers, but try and buy from indies if you can!-and take a deep dive into Derry’s dark history…

Links to the wider King Universe-

Dick Hallorann from ‘The Shining’ appears in an Interlude as a chef in The Black Spot

Bev and Richie pop up in a post It ’11/22/63′ meeting main character Jake Epping

Ben Hanscom goes to live in Hemingford Home, the birth place of one Mother Abagail Freemantle from ‘The Stand’

The serial killer from ‘The Dead Zone’ remains a childhood boogeyman, referenced by Bev who also mentions ‘Cujo’

In ‘The Tommyknockers’, a clown with silver eyes is spotted peering up from under a manhole cover  in Derry, which suggest that the cycle is about to repeat itself…

The Turtle which is mentioned in ‘It’ could relate to the Dark Tower guardians of The Beam (this is pure off the top of my head conjecture though as I cannot remember the Dark Tower series in great detail, but there is an itch at the back of my head that suggests a link between the two)

Shawshank prison is referred to, from ‘Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption’ , as is Juniper Hill Asylum where Henry ends up incarcerated,that pops up in many of King’s books such as ‘Insomnia’

Was there anything else that you spotted whilst reading ‘It’?

About the author…

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, ‘Mr Mercedes’, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both ‘Mr Mercedes’ and ‘End Of Watch’ received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel ‘Sleeping Beauties‘ with his son Owen King, and many of King’s books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘, ‘Gerald’s Game’ and ‘It‘.

King was the recipient of America’s prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine

Links-https://www.stephenking.com/

Twitter @StephenKing

@HodderBooks

Links-https://consequenceofsound.net/podcasts/the-losers-club/

The Loser’s Club from Consequence of Sound is a brilliant resource where it is like listening to friends chatting about your favourite books and films. They take deep dives into the work of King in chronoligcal order and I am a huge fan, 100% recommend checking them out!