It Paperback – May 1, 2011

I've read a number of Stephen King's books over the past 15 years, and had also read a number of his short stories prior to that period. King has always genuinely impressed me with his incredible eye for detail, his sense of place, and his ability to steadily pay out the rope line of a story's plot. Additionally, of course, he's the Jedi Master of creepiness. Although I was familiar with the premise of IT --- indeed, I watched the ABC miniseries back when it first aired in 1990 --- , I had never taken on this massive work as a reading challenge.With the recent release of the big-screen adaptation of King's story, I felt that it was time to shift this novel to the top of my bucket list. Now, having reached the conclusion of this tale, I stand entertained, inspired, and deeply moved. You see, to me, IT is not simply an epic horror tale; I feel that is also a powerful odyssey of friendship, belonging, coming of age...and love. From the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the narrative chronicles the lives and times of a group of young pre-teens growing up in the small town of Derry, Maine. These young people are brought together by fate and circumstance to forge a fundamental bond, upon which is built not only all of their intense and complicated interpersonal relationships but, ultimately, their shared commitment to confront an unearthly monster that has, for generations, stalked and murdered Derry's residents --- especially children. As the members of the "Losers' Club" grow to know one another, become playmates, and evolve the fierce and pure loyalty and protectiveness towards each other that are so characteristic of young kids, their showdown with It looms closer and closer.Of course, the story’s titular antagonist is, ultimately, the most frightening of the Losers’ Club’s foes. However, what childhood would be complete without the unwanted attentions of schoolyard bullies? Led by Henry Bowers, a seething, dangerously angry son of a poor local farmer, a group of boys a couple of years older and bigger than our young heroes is an all-too-familiar presence in Derry, and it repeatedly attempts to corner the “Losers” when they’re alone, or at least outnumbered. Under the mostly unspoken leadership of “Stuttering” Bill Denbrough, the Losers’ Club’s lovable misfits navigate their way through a strange 1958 summer, a season of weird and frightening revelations, discovering more and more about Derry’s many hidden secrets even as they reveal more and more of themselves, their foibles, and their fears to one another. Bill is clearly the linchpin of the group, made all the more so by his anger, terror, and guilt over the awful death of his younger brother Georgie, another of It’s victims. With Bill often taking point, the Losers’ Club manages to (mostly) stay out of the clutches of Bowers and his group of thuggish louts.These “lost” children create their own tribe of sorts, a surrogate family that provides companionship, love and support when most of the adults around them are too wrapped up in themselves and their own private hells to be much help. Beverly Marsh, the sole girl in this society of seven, is sort of a tomboy, whose generally greater maturity and budding sexuality throw an understandable monkey wrench into the group’s dynamics. Stan Uris, one of the few Jews in Derry, is quiet, bookish, and sensible; Richie Tozier is the wise-cracking obnoxious kid with a heart of gold. Ben Hanscomb is the gentle and whip-smart fat kid who is brave beyond his years. Eddie Kaspbrak, smothered by his hyper-protective mother and suffering from crippling hypochondria, is imaginative and inventive and loyal to a fault. This septet is rounded out by Mike Hanlon, only child of one of the only African-American farmers in the area; Hanlon is, from the start, the group’s scribe, in fact carrying on in this role into the Losers’ adulthood...he is the only one of the seven who will stay in Derry through the seasons, years, and decades, until, in 1985, the horrifying disappearances and murders which seem to plague the town every 27 years or so begin again. Hanlon has watched and waited, like a sentry, wondering if he will ever have to contact his friends from so long ago, friends who have moved on to a wide range of professionally successful but sometimes personally haphazard lives. Moreover, he is unsure not only if the grownups sprung from those children of 1958 will adhere to the promise they all made to return to Derry to confront It if It should resurface, but if they will remember that era of their existence at all. As with the greater community of Derry, individuals there often seem to lose connections with their pasts, as if afflicted with some kind of metaphysical amnesia.By turns eerie and cheerful, terrifying and ridiculously funny, IT takes us on a tour of what it was --- and is --- to be a kid. You dream big dreams. You skin your knees. You find puppy love. You make friends. You suffer setbacks and even full-blown tragedies. If you are one of those folks to have had the good fortune of having a few really close partners-in-crime with whom to spend the lazy days of summer, then King’s novel will, I think, deeply resonate. The exquisite use of detail to accomplish painstakingly complex world-building, of which King is truly a master, breathes real life --- and death --- into Derry, Maine. The movement of the narrative back and forth in time is achieved quite seamlessly, and the author’s attention to what I’d call the continuity of experience helps readers to much better comprehend the twisted and disturbing history of the town, and to appreciate the raw passage of years, both during the lives of the main and supporting characters and in the time periods of some of the narrative flashbacks that provide the audience with a rich backstory.The intrepid heroes of this very long and sophisticated novel love each other. They stay loyal to each other, even when, sometimes, their hearts are breaking and they are losing faith in everything around them. They have, in the modern vernacular, each other’s backs. The innocence of much of their summer shenanigans is counterpointed powerfully by moments when each of them faces unpleasant truths about their families, as well as by the crucial points in the story at which the lurking, quintessential evil of It shows itself, however fleetingly. As Bill and the rest move inexorably toward their encounter with Derry’s awful monster, they are, in many ways, simultaneously leaving their true childhoods further and further behind, just as, in the intervening generation or so between their various departures from the town and their perhaps foreordained return to it, their memories of that time and place fade like a mostly-forgotten nightmare.I could not recommend this novel more strongly. As a thrilling and thoughtful example of the best that the horror genre has to offer, IT is superb. However, as I said before, I believe that, when you take the journey to this haunted New England town, and face down monsters both human and inhuman, right alongside some of the most genuinely childlike characters to have ever graced the pages of a literary work, you will remember what it’s like to dream, imagine, dare, and love, all over again.

5 / 5 starsThis is a tough review to write, because an 1100+ page doorstopper is a lot to take in and process. This book has become one of my all-time favorites (despite that scene), and I feel like I left a piece of my heart in the magically messed up town of Derry.I went into this almost completely blind - I hadn’t seen either the television series or the recent movies, but I knew the plot had something to do with a clown terrorizing children in the sewers and red balloons. I expected more horror, but instead I got a love letter to childhood, friendship, and summer, with undertones of loss, growing up, and growing apart.“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end—began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.”In true King fashion, the first 200 pages or so of this were slow. I found myself wondering what I got myself into, because one of my reading goals for 2020 was to read this book, but man, was it slow. Around page 500, I was completely hooked, and then by page 1000 I was ready for it to be done. Thankfully, for the most part, this was a thoroughly enjoyable ride, and I actually find myself missing the world of Derry.“It” has some of the best world building I’ve ever experienced. King’s tendency to over-describe and elaborate pulls through in this to make a town that seems so tangible, I had to remind myself that Derry isn’t actually a real place. From the barrens to the library, the sewers and the pharmacy, the standpipe and the park with the creepy Paul Bunyan statue, I had a detailed picture in my mind's eye. The wide cast of characters, including the town members like Mr. Keene, add to the realism of Derry.“But maybe I was wrong, he thought. Maybe this isn’t home, nor ever was—maybe home is where I have to go tonight. Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.”And the CHARACTERS. God, the characters. I love every member of the Losers Club, except for maybe Stanley. If I had to pick a favorite, I would say it’s a three way tie between Ben, Richie, and Bev. I loved watching them grow up and confront their past and fears while looking toward the future. I didn’t care for Stanley much, but that was because he was the most forgettable member of the club, and it felt like he was mainly there to bind the losers club together and serve as the realist.I thoroughly enjoyed both the past and the future, and still find myself thinking about the horrors the kids faced going against It in their younger days.I loved the Derry interlude chapters, and they really added a new layer of depth to the world. It was interesting learning the history of Derry through snippets of the past, and I thoroughly enjoyed the side stories of the Black Spot and the Bradley Gang. Something about no one acknowledging the terrors as they’re happening makes everything It does so much more spine tingling.It can be difficult to alternate between two perspectives, the past and the present, and from past experience when an author attempts it one point of view is written stronger than the other. That’s not the case here. In “It”, both the past and present were so poignant, and I wanted nothing more than happiness for both the kid and adult Losers. I think I liked the past chapters just a little bit more, because they had the unknown terror that kids face. It was also steeped with nostalgia and simpler times, and I found myself yearning for summers as a kid in my parents’ house.“The first note his father left him in that spring of 1958 was scribbled on the back of an envelope and held down with a saltshaker. The air was spring-warm, wonderfully sweet, and his mother had opened all the windows.”The ending is one of the most bittersweet endings I’ve read in a book, and it made me cry like a baby. It was a cathartic ending, and I felt sadness, relief, and wonder. It didn’t feel fair, but life isn’t fair, and no one knows that better than Mike and the other Losers.I’m so glad I read this book. It has cemented itself as one of my favorite stories of all time, and even though I finished it weeks ago, I still find myself thinking about it (and It).