It by: Stephen King

It is a novel that reaches a 1,153-page count and it isn’t Stephen King’s longest novel.  The novel itself is remembered for two major scenes: the opening death of George Denbrough and the underage sewer gangbang that occurs near the end of the novel.  It is a story with much more than that.  It is a story about the deep friendships, the strength of a promise, human nature, and the cyclic nature of violence and trauma.  The book has twice been adapted into a visual form twice, the first a low budget TV-miniseries from 1990 starring Tim Curry and the second a pair of big budget horror films directed by Andy Muschietti, but neither can adapt all of the intricate subplots from the novel.  The 1990 miniseries perhaps came the closest, but in adapting the story for a television audience, much of King’s work was toned down.  The novel drips with atmosphere and works in a way that only a book truly can.



It tells the story of a group of seven from the town of Derry, Maine who as children are terrorized by a creature only referred to as “It” and most commonly taking the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.  It wakes up every 27 years to terrorize and feed upon the children of Derry, and the seven members of the ‘Loser’s Club’ join together to stop it in 1958.  They fail, and must return in 1985 to finish the job.  This rough summary does not really do It justice.  The novel is much more than that simple plot outline due to a unique structure.  King writes It in a way so that technically everything takes place in 1985, but as the members of the Loser’s Club remember the events of that summer in 1957, the reader learning about the plot with the characters.  This is a style that cannot be replicated in any non-print form of media.  This is also a risk for a horror novel taking place in two time periods as the tension with the child characters as starting in the then present immediately lets the reader know that all seven will make it out alive.  King does not derive horror from the threat of death, however, horror is derived from the trauma the characters are rediscovering through their memories.  Each of the Losers have gone through extreme trauma and now they are coming back to Derry to relive and overcome It.



The character of It can be read as a representation of this type of trauma.  It is an eternal being and a part of the larger Stephen King universe (yes his books have a shared universe).  While adaptations often put It front and center, It keeps It in the background.  It is the looming threat that embodies the fear of Derry, the fear of the Losers, and the general tone of the book.  It is something otherworldly and eternal, coming and going, taking glee in Its feeding.  Keeping the creature off-page with many glimpses and small confrontations before the climax, allows King to ingrain It into the town of Derry.  It is Derry itself.  Every adult and many of the children in the town are subtly under Its influence throughout the novel, only being noticed when It is awake and attempting to feed.  While Pennywise the Dancing Clown is perhaps the most famous and most often appearing form of It, the novel still uses the Pennywise form sparingly so the horror of the other forms slowly creeping into the scenario.  It reflects the character’s deepest and darkest fears from the childish fear of monsters and the adult fears of growing up, dealing with prejudice and abuse.  There is a thread of children having to grow up as they deal with adult issues and then return to deal with them later in life when they are adult enough to overcome them.  The cosmic nature of It as a creature perfectly reflects the unconquerable nature of trauma, prejudice, and even grief from the childish to the more adult nature of these topics.



Each of the Losers in It has something to truly overcome from the obvious to the more subtle.  Mike Hanlon and Stan Uris have to overcome the prejudice of racism.  Mike is the only black child in Derry while Stan is Jewish.  At the start of the 1957 timeline, Stan was able to make friends and at least put away the racism put against him and joke about it with his friends.  King however makes Stan the only member of the Losers’ to not overcome his fear, slitting his wrists when he receives the call to come back to Derry.  Mike is on the polar opposite, unable to hide away his trauma.  Mike is the lighthouse keeper, the one to stay behind in Derry and to bring everyone back together.  Mike was not allowed to forget.  Unlike Stan, everyone knows Mike is black and the Bowers gang without fail go after him for it.  Psychopathic bully Henry Bowers poisons Mike’s dog in an attempt to make Mike go insane.  It is this which brings Mike into the Losers Club, as the rest of the Losers stick up for him by throwing rocks.



Beverly Marsh and Eddie Kaspbrak both have to deal with abusive parents.  Beverly’s father is physically abusive, hitting her for not doing things correctly and potentially spending time with boys.  Alvin Marsh is repressive and abusive, potentially being willing to kill his own daughter.  Like Stan, Bev does have difficulty in overcoming this, marrying an equally manipulative and abusive man who follows her back to Derry.  Bev also has a subtle subplot about growing into her sexuality as she reaches puberty and becomes aware of what that means.  This is where we get to the part of It that is just objectively bad, the underage gangbang.  King was attempting to show the Losers coming together and attempting to be an adult to save themselves, but this comes across as more childish.  It is also just disturbing to read.  Eddie Kaspbrak also has difficulty in overcoming his mother, a woman with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, convincing Eddie that he is a fragile boy.  Eddie as a character is just boiling under the surface through germaphobia and asthma, to rebel, and by the end of the novel both as a child and adult he is able to.  Ben Hanscom also has a potential abuse story as his mother, being poor, is determined to make sure Ben has enough to eat.  This made Ben gain weight and be bullied by Bowers for it (even having an H carved into his stomach with a switchblade early on in the novel).



Richie Tozier perhaps has the weakest ‘trauma’ allegory throughout, being a more typical idea of being the class clown to hide insecurities, yet he is one of my favorite characters in the novel.  He’s the one who has the most typical story and the provider of quite a bit of comic relief throughout the book.  Rounding out the Losers is Bill Denbrough who’s trauma is social ostracization for his stutter and the death of his younger brother at the hand of It.  The arc is simple, yet effective.  All the arcs are effective.  While It is the primary antagonist, mention must be mentioned of the age old Stephen King trope of the bullies.  Henry Bowers is the main bully, surviving to the 1985 storyline and making himself known as a complete psychopath.  King humanizes him, he comes from an abusive father who influences him and there are implications that Bowers is a deeply closeted homosexual.  He goes beyond simple high school bully and slowly degenerates into murderous intent.  His two main cronies are Vic Criss and Belch Higgins and they are the more stereotypical bullies, yet are still forces to be reckoned with.



While the above describes much of the main plot of It there are still plenty of subplots and sidesteps, such as the interludes, the character of Patrick Hockstetter (another bully and child murderer who is killed by It), and the several other murders.  The attempt is not to spoil everything in the story, as the climax is where much of the cosmic scale of It comes into play.  It is not a perfect climax, but it does end in an interesting way.  It is not a novel for everyone, and one that readers should take their time with.  Let the horrors of Derry and the characters really wash over you and if my review has piqued your interest pick it up.  9/10.