Almost everything you want to know about It but were too afraid to ask
Come on back and we’ll see if you remember the simplest thing of all – how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark.
Stephen King, It
Where do you begin to talk about It?
Part 1 – In.
Arguably King’s most famous book, which when coupled with its length is an impossibly impressive thing; it’s only marginally shorter than The Stand. There is an urban legend that a King fan had It delivered to their house, and as their small dog barked at the opening letter slot, It fell and crushed it. The only part that I find unbelievable about this is that a copy of the book would actually fit through the letter slot. Such is its notoriety that people who have never read a King book or even heard of him know about the clown in the sewer with a red balloon, partly thanks to the 90s miniseries with Tim Curry and the recent mega successful adaptation with Bill Skarsgård. Only The Shining comes close for recognisable iconography.
Depending on when you ask me, this is my favourite King book, and it is that more often than not. It is the only book I have had to buy an extra copy of as my first, admittedly secondhand, copy fell apart. I read it at the age when I could have been a member of The Losers Club, and reread it a few years ago before the movie with a whole new perspective. It is even perhaps the book that feeds into my theory that the best time to start reading King is ever so slightly younger than you should. The numerous guests who tell their King origins stories on The Kingcast is only further proof, and this is one of the books I think that is best placed for reading slightly too young. Revisiting it now feels like greeting an old friend, and finishing it again is a bittersweet goodbye.
I think part of what makes this book so effective is that it is a book in direct conversation with Danse Macabre. Though both books obviously are stand alone works, I think it is impossible to fully consider It without knowing King’s own thoughts about the horror genre overall. That he lays them out so clearly in that book is like the research groundwork that led to It: his grand thesis statement on horror in the form of fiction. It’s a culmination of everything that King is interested in with horror and I think this is a definite watershed moment in his writing career. Because of who Pennywise is, King has an opportunity to touch upon every possible type of horror he wants to, and he takes that opportunity with glee. This is to an extent King’s final word on the genre, and more than justifies its length with such a wide-ranging subject matter.
Though King has always had a good relationship with his Constant Reader, and his style has always been down to earth and folksy, this reads at times like King himself is relating the story to you like you would around a campfire. The use of ‘friends and neighbours,’ throughout reads like a phrase from one of his introductions, and the introductory note that accompanies the first Derry interlude quietly establishes that someone besides Mike Hanlon has collated the story of It. Towards the end, the Losers and Pennywise suspect some Other is pushing the narrative to its conclusion. There is man behind the pages, and he wants to take you on a ride, through fear and love and what it means to live with both. To paraphrase Mike himself, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of It. Will you join?
Part 2 – Terror. Fear. Disgust.
In Danse Macabre, King talks with great affection for the horror movies of his youth, and with it the first major theme of the book – the power of fear. Part of what he gets to do with that here is he gets to make those old horror movies as scary as he remembers, where childhood may have magnified those old fears into something tangible. In his literature section of Danse Macabre, as well as his own books leading up to this, King discusses how real world fears can be made metaphorical using horror, whilst still talking about very real problems in the world. In this book, he sublimates every single one of those fears into arguably his most terrifying, certainly most iconic, creation: Pennywise, the Dancing Clown.
Firstly, let’s discuss the clown part. Clowns in some respects represent the duality this book is discussing, the difference between childhood and growing up. Clowns to children should be agents of fun and fancy, with tricks and gags designed to delight. But they are adults engaged with play, and should be beyond such frivolity. In this respect, a clown is the perfect avatar for It to take. But with time, we see a darker quality to the clown beneath the greasepaint. Much has been written about the subject of coulrophobia: how the white faces and red grins are corpse-like; the violence harmless yet extreme; magic, unnatural. They are uncanny valley before that existed as a named idea. As such, Pennywise is the perfect vector for that unnatural fear that exists in plain sight. Some of this is discussed in the book, but King takes it further. The Losers initial interactions with Pennywise in It’s clown form each carry indicators of sheer wrongness, whether it be the lack of shadow, the changing colour of its eyes, or balloons that float against the wind, details the children note but go unnoticed by adults for It is only a harmless clown. King has recognised not just that fear that can derive from the uncanny, but that children are particularly adept at identifying It.
But Pennywise has many unnatural forms, and some of those forms link back to the movies beloved by a young Stevie King described in Danse Macabre. We have cameos from The Creature from the Black Lagoon‘s Gilman, a Frankenstein Monster and The Crawling Eye, amongst many others. Monsters that from a grown-up perspective can appear, at best, hokey (The Crawling Eye was lampooned by Mystery Science Theatre 3000 for example), but from a child’s view can become terrifyingly real, just as adults accept the clown’s implicit harmlessness where a child sees a monster. I think it is important to bear that in mind. I remember hearing disappointment that the recent It: Chapter One did not featuring more modern villains like Freddy Kreuger or Jason Voorhees as incarnations of It, but aside from the rights and potential to overshadow the main monster of the hour, it misses the point of why B movie monsters are a more natural home for It. Those modern movie villains were designed to scare adults and teens, and still have the capacity to do so today. No one ends up scared of the Crawling Eye, except perhaps a child.
But more than a clown or B movie schlock, there is a clear delineation between the horrors the children face and what they face again as adults. Children’s fears are fundamentally different to an adult’s. Children fear what might be real. Adults fear what they know. Pennywise muses on it within the book that children have tangible fears that are easier to manifest than, say, a general ennui about the climate. Part of the maturation of the Losers is turning those fears from might fears to know to fear. The Losers fears start with the cinematic monsters, but realise as time goes by that there something else to fear instead. Those developing children’s fears uncover something bigger than a fear of a Teenage Werewolf or Crawling Eye, even as manifestations of Pennywise – the real fear is the hidden horror that manifests within Derry.
The wrongness of Pennywise infiltrates the whole town. There is horror in the adults who actively ignore it, but there is something worse in those who can sense something wrong, but can’t do anything about it. Numerous times, an adult will say there is something wrong with Derry, but they can’t do anything about it. Towards the end, when the relationship between Beverly and her father finally snaps, we see one old man actively return to his home to ignore the situation. The children are powerless to alert the adults to the oncoming disaster, and so must take it upon themselves to save lives. Greta Thunberg would be a valuable member of the Losers today, especially considering Derry is destroyed in a biblical, environmental disaster. A green reading is apt, but it just as easily has a colonial reading too. Derry is America in microcosm, and that it is built upon trauma and disaster and murder is not so different to America’s history. There is a darkness innate to the foundations of Derry, and when that is removed the town can finally be washed clean. But until such a time, the architecture of the town allows it all to perpetuate for centuries almost casually. The history of America is such that something like the Tulsa Massacre is forgotten in general, or continual erosion of First Nation land and rights is quietly ignored all in the trumpet call of American Exceptionalism. Pennywise is the dark heart of Derry, but it’s not like it took much to push the town in that direction. The children, in growing up, learn and recognise not that evil exists, but that it always has.
On a more micro level, the childhood trauma and darkness exists in an almost throwaway manner. The fact that the monstrous Henry Bowers is only 12 years old and murders his father with barely a push, a detail I seem to forget every time until I revisit the book, or that one of the ’58 victims, Cheryl Lamonica, is 16 years old but dropped out of school as she had a child three years prior. These are details that can get lost in the scale of the book, but when pulled out add a layer of horror to the proceedings, as well as feed into the general tapestry that things are wrong but there’s nothing to be done about it. The Losers know of horror from the films they watch, but the horror they live in as they develop is hidden beneath a patina of indifferent civility. A young girl is statutorily raped, has a child and is then murdered? Oh well. There’s a young boy with signs of becoming a sexual predator, and maybe worse? Never mind. A young girl is nearly raped by her own father? Not my business. Violence is inherent to America, but it’s glibness and indifference in the face of it is the real horror (see Rage for similar meditations). Pennywise is just taking advantage of the rich soil he landed upon.
The adult fears are far more wide-ranging. By adult, I do not necessarily mean the adult characters, but the fears separate from the monsters. Bill’s fear of emotional abandonment by his parents and guilt over his brother’s death; Bev’s fear of her father and oncoming maturity; Eddie’s fear of disease; the Losers’ fear of Henry Bowers, the bully to end all bullies. These are things that can be exploited by It, but are part of the general fear of growing up. Eddie Corcoran, who meets his end at the aforementioned Gilman, is scared of his violent father. His death, as well as his younger brother’s, reminds the reader that not every kid makes it out of childhood alive. Those who survive may look back upon childhood fondly, but forget the many who aren’t so lucky. But if a childhood fear is of something under the bed, that can be disproved – but those adult fears are not so easy to dispel. It is about overcoming those childhood fears and learning to cope with the adult ones.
Even those who do get out of childhood alive do not get out unscathed. The adult fears that belong to the grown-ups are generally developments of their childhood ones. Bev’s in particular is quite an upsetting one, where the cycle of abuse she suffered at the hands of her father (and to an extent, Henry Bowers and Pennywise) are manifest in Tom Rogan. He is a monstrous bully, much like Henry and Pennywise, who gets off on the power he wields over those he sees as weaker. All three of these villains rule by fear, and it has ruined the lives of the characters who have lived lives in the shadow of those fears. Pennywise is evil, sure, but again only pushes the situation so slightly to his advantage. Tom Rogan as a domestic abuser is the kind of monster who lives behind a closed door on your street. He exists outside the boundaries of the book. The horror is the fears it feeds on are, in most cases, all too real. Again, Bev is lucky to escape her father and Rogan – but not everyone is so lucky.
One of the scariest real world fears is encompassed in one of the stand out sections of the book: the story of Patrick Hocksetter. It’s possibly my favourite part of the book, because of how creepy it is. The detail that Pennywise, when it begins to actually feed on the psychopathic Patrick, is unable to solidify into a form, is such a brilliant choice by King, highlighting Hocksetter’s inhumanity brilliantly. Patrick doesn’t feel fear like a normal human, and King crafts one of his most chilling villains in a short number of pages. It highlights again the recurring theme of the book – the real fears of child and adulthood are more potent, more dangerous and more destructive than that of cosmic killer clown.
Part 3 – Friendship. Love. Hope.
But as much as fear is an important theme of the book, so too is its opposite. It defines the book as much as the fear.
The love the exists between the Losers is pure. One can look back over the book and some of the language used, particularly regarding Stan and Mike, can be quite harsh. But I think it’s truthful in a couple ways: firstly, King is writing about his own childhood in a way (born in 1947, the setting of 1958 would put him at the same age as the Losers), and so is writing from his own experience. But it also speaks to the childhood innocence where children do just kind of talk shit to each other without realising how bad it is. It’s the kind of language that is totally unacceptable… But also, who amongst us has not been rude to a friend in the spirit of friendship?
Part of the joy of the book, and part of the reason I think so many prefer the 1958 sections of the book, is that the friendship between the Losers is simple and pure. It appeals to the nostalgia of many readers, the ones who got out of childhood alive, to remember their own childhood with the same kind of affection. When I read the book now, the final chapters where the characters drift apart and begin to forget each other make me cry, partly because there is the innocence lost. I can genuinely remember the last conversations I had with some childhood friends and those facts for any reader can be painful and complicated. They reflect a reality that can be uncomfortable.
Yes, there are childhood friends I no longer see or talk to – but by the same token, there are a few, a select few, who I see and talk to and love with all my heart. Seeing them, we can pick up exactly where we left off and have the best of times together. I, too, used to prefer the 1958 sections when I was younger, but as I have grown up I increasingly gain an appreciation for the adult sections. I don’t forget the childhood I had, but I can recognise now the adult parts as intrinsically important to the story, because the story of It is not just about the monsters and fears, but about hope and love. I’ve often spoken about how King noodles around the idea of hope in his previous books, but It might be the ultimate expression of his message of the power of love and hope.
Take for example, Eddie. Eddie has been beaten down by fear his entire life, inherited from the deep-seated paranoia of his mother. He will never overcome it, permanently being an anxious hypochondriac with mother issues. When Eddie breaks his arm, Eddie’s mother almost succeeds in truly isolating him from those who love him. But with the support and love of the Losers, who aren’t even physically present in his hospital room, he is able to confront his mother about the placebo inhaler and his relationship with his friends. His mother describes Eddie’s presence as greater than she’s ever known before, and though there is an implication that Maturin the Turtle is guiding Eddie to an extent (but then, judging by the name, what else is Maturin but the experience of maturing?), Eddie’s inner strength is mostly powered from the love he feels from his friends. There is the childhood fear still present in Eddie’s life, but for the first time he can put love at the centre instead. It is only temporary, but shows the power that can be found within when finding love from without.
But then there is the love that is corrupted throughout. Tom Rogan, again, is a great example, but it’s perhaps best to look at Beverly’s father, Al Marsh. There is the malign influence of Pennywise on proceedings, but King wisely keeps ambiguous the extent of its influence. The sexual component adds the extra layer of horror. Parents are the ones who are meant to love you, but what happens when that turns sour? Corruption of love so that it becomes abuse is also evident in Eddie’s mother, who raises a hypochondriac child, who has more panic attacks in a day than I have had in my life; Ben’s parents, who neglect his own grief and disappear into their own; Ben’s mother, who feeds him to obesity. I think it’s only Mike’s parents that don’t mess up their kid. Each parent’s love has been twisted. King has touched upon parental abuse before, most notably in The Shining but in other books too. Considering how often King returns to this, I think this may be one of King’s ultimate fears too – that his love, which comes from a good place, can be wrong. In historical terms, we are only a short distance from King’s sobriety. King’s oldest child was around fifteen when the book was completed, his youngest eight, and though I believe King is a good dad (the quality of his dad jokes on Twitter suggest he’s still got it), all parents fear being a bad parent. King expresses that fear, but also expresses his ultimate message of hope and love,
Love then, according to It, gives us the weapons we need to combat against fear and hopelessness. Pennywise feeds on our negativity and fear, exploiting them for sustenance, but the Losers with each other form a group to fight it. They are able to defeat Pennywise, and I think it is important to note that they do it together. Love and friendship give them the hope that dares them to believe things could be better. It doesn’t always, not forever, but just as there are stars at night, there is always light in the darkness.
Okay. Let’s talk about it. That Scene. I am going to be extremely careful with regards to this. A conversation about It cannot exist without at least some kind of acknowledgement of That Scene. In a way, the whole book is about it – the title in its simplicity can be about any number of things unspoken, hidden behind closed doors, be that violence, dread, history, queerness, sex. The book (and by extension, this essay) are here to expound a little upon those unspoken things.
Most discussion about the scene tend to focus purely on the scene and the glib descriptions of it, without taking into account the wider context it takes place within the book. By this, I don’t just mean the explicit plot purpose of which it serves, but also as part of the theme of sex and sexuality – the theme of It. Sex (and to a lesser extent, queerness – a subject huge enough for its own essay in the future) recurs throughout the book, often unspoken, usually regarded with fear. Bev hears the quiet squeaks of her parents at night which in her innocent way she fears and only vaguely understands. Bev’s mother outright asks Bev if Al has touched her, and Bev simply doesn’t understand it. I’ll admit when I first read this in my youth, that subtext flew past without me recognising the truth; only upon more mature rereading did I understand the darkness implicit in the story. But similarly, Adrian Mellon’s murder is at the hands of those who fear sex and sexuality, as is Henry’s violent reaction to Patrick’s offer of a blowjob. Sex in those contexts is unknown, something to be feared, offered or known without love.
But the sex scene in the sewers below Derry is not characterised in that way. It could not exist without the previous scenes and within the scene it is explicitly coded as an expression of love and connection. Because of its inherently controversial nature, King has said much about it in the past. In one of his more recent explanations, he said:
“I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood – 1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. None of us remember what we did as children–we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”
Stephen King
It is notable that he does not really defend it, but explain his thinking about it. King is a great interview subject, but is often loathe to talk about the deeper meaning of his books. That he does discuss this scene I think demonstrates a few things. Firstly, how often it is taken out of context to criticise him (there are some mad theories out there about King) with wilful misreadings, but also, perhaps even if only a small part of him, acknowledging it wasn’t his best decision to depict his ideas on the power of love in that way. I am loathe to blame his drug addictions for the scene, as he wrote the book over the course of five years, as well as numerous people within publishing who would have to okay the book. His name was on the cover, but it’s not him alone that put it there. It gets a lot of stick, but I think there are far more controversial books with childhood sex that get a free pass (Flowers in the Attic, which was also made into a film a year after It was published; The Cement Garden). I think that It being a horror novel, people are less inclined to be forgiving. People are suspicious of anyone who enjoys horror. King even said as much in Danse Macabre.
I think there’s also something to be said about when you read it too. As an adult, even understanding the context and the intention of the scene, it is a bit nasty. But when I read it as a kid, it wasn’t such a problem. But as King says, there is better understanding and education surrounding things such as childhood sexuality and consent. This scene may not have dated so well, but it is important to consider the context, historically as well as part of the novel as a whole, to understand that scene. I think King wants the same. He has gone beyond defending it, because to a certain extent it isn’t so defendable. It’s true, there is more sensitivity towards those issues. But the novel is getting towards forty years old. It would be more remarkable if parts of It hadn’t dated (see the brief discussion of autism in The Shining for example). But it can at least be understood as part of the wider themes of the novel as representative of the novel’s more positive themes. How you personally take that scene is entirely up to you.
Part 4 – Change. Growing Up. Moving On.
Part of what keeps Derry going through the cycle of violence, ironically, is inertia. It’s the central tension in the book, the struggle between Fear and Love. Things have always been that way, and so it should remain, because change is scary. Derry’s fault that leads to its destruction is its inability to move on. It is in part what destroys Pennywise too, and what stops Stan being able to join the Losers in 1985. It’s a failure of imagination and hope to suggest that maybe, just maybe, things could be better. Stan’s suicide at the beginning of the novel is him rejecting that childhood he has never quite escaped from will always be part of him. He cannot accept that, unlike the other Losers, and gives in to it’s darkness. He is another victim of the abuse. Though the other Losers are able to move on by the novel’s close, it is sad but true that even when all grown up it is not always possible to get out of childhood alive. He dies in the bathtub, maybe in an attempt to wash away the past.
The adults in the book fail to mature is part of the problem. The way they treat their children is not disrespectful, but shows an inability move on and change. They don’t embrace their responsibilities, but are instead crippled by them. Ben’s mother has to feed her child, but overfeeds Ben instead; Eddie’s mother has to protect her child, but raises a hypochondriac; Bev’s father has to love his daughter, but is in love with her; Bill’s parents love their child, but not the one who is still there. Nothing changes for any of them, unless instigated by the children themselves who are forced to take on that responsibility. They may be grown ups, but they aren’t necessarily adults, paralysed by the worst case scenario instead of daring to believe that things might be better if only they listen and try.
There is something to be said about Bev’s first encounter with the bloody sink, and how that proves an important step in combating Pennywise. There has been plenty of talk until then about their encounters, separately, with this monster, but this is the first time something is done about It. There is an acceptance and the imagination there to believe that things can be better. To clean up the blood, not just ignore it, but do something about it. It serves as counterpoint to Stan’s death too. Girls are always said to mature faster than boys, and it is because they have to. Fighting Pennywise is only possible by being an adult with its responsibilities but not forgetting your childhood self too. So much is characterised as one definite or the other, when actually the Losers represent a continuum of maturity. Richie, for example, is arguably the most childish adult yet does the most in combatting Pennywise in the climax of the book. Adults are a product of their childhood, and all the fear and love and terror and friendship that came with it.
Bill is able to realise this in the epilogue of the book. The whole novel is about making peace with his childhood, not necessarily forgetting or embracing it, but knowing it is a part of him and that it has power. It is adulthood fear and childhood thrills that revive Audra from catatonia, riding on the back of Silver. The final chapter of the book is heartbreaking and melancholy, but oh so true, echoing themes found in King’s earlier novella The Body. Childhood is dark and scary, and not everyone makes it out alive. But it is can be full of love, hope and joy, and it is just as important to not forget these things as you grow up. Growing up isn’t about being an adult – it’s about responsibility, to protect others from the monsters they cannot face, and making things right.
Part 5 – Out.
Even with all of this, there is still so much more to say about It. It is a book that is rich and rewards multiple readings. Back in The Shining essay, I argued that it is a strong contender for King’s magnum opus. It might be one of the only other books of his, of a small, small pool that also qualifies for that.
But that is not why it is often my favourite King book, though it does make it much easier to discuss. The best books are different to people’s favourite books, and I think a favourite book has to touch something deep within the reader. It forms a unique relationship between the author and the reader, one the author will never be aware of and can only hope for. It is wonderful, and bypasses the critical sections of my brain straight to the pleasure centres, a book I can pick up and open to any page and settle in like I can with an old friend. Every time I open the book, the Losers welcome me back, and each time I might notice a new wrinkle, a grey hair, a pair of glasses that weren’t there before, but they are still the friends I love when I read this for the first time all those years ago, and they will always welcome me back like nothing has ever changed. And when we turn to the last page, as Bill rides out of Derry to what we hope is a happy ever after, I cry until it’s time to meet them again. Each time, there is love and hope and childhood thrills just beyond that horizon.
Some final words from Mr King seem appropriate here. Words to live by,
Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.
Stephen King, It
Observations and Connections
Boy there’s a lot.
Though this is the book about Derry, Derry had been mentioned as far back as The Long Walk. Despite the ending of this book, Derry continues to exist in some form in future stories both long and short. Maybe evil never truly goes away from Derry.
The introduction of the Turtle called Maturin is another large piece of King’s cosmology as introduced and described in The Gunslinger and expanded more in The Waste Lands. As much as Pennywise defines itself in opposition to Maturin, I do rather enjoy that It is a speck in the cosmology compared to Maturin. Some might think Maturin is a reference to Pratchett’s Discworld series, and though it is possible I think it’s one of those times of weird synchronicity. It’s more likely a reference to the idea of the World Turtle in general.
One of the big surprises is seeing Dick Halloran from The Shining back in a flashback to The Black Spot in Derry. There’s the suggestion of his shine in the story that for the unfamiliar can easily be read as just one of those uneasy intuitions people get, but for fans is a delight. I remember reading this for the first time and getting such a thrill at Halloran’s return.
The car that picks up Henry Bowers from the asylum is described as a red ’58 Plymouth driven by a corpse, and it absolutely is a reference to Christine. Maybe Christine, once she got everyone back at the end of her book, is acting like an evil taxi for King characters.
Ben Hanscom stops off at Herringford Home on his way to Derry, just down the road from the ‘abandoned’ Gatlin. These were locations mentioned in The Stand (home of Mother Abigail), and from the Night Shift stories The Children of the Corn and The Last Rung on the Ladder.
Bev Marsh makes an oblique reference to a crazy cop killer from Castle Rock, referencing The Dead Zone‘s Frank Dodds.
There’s a couple references to a state prison in upstate Maine, which is reference to Shawshank. If you didn’t know already, Shawshank Penitentiary first appeared in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
King first used the phrase, ‘He thrusts his fists against the posts…‘ quoting Donovan’s Brain in Danse Macabre. Considering how long he took to write It, it’s very possible that he was writing It around that time, and used it for this book as well, though it is also briefly used in ‘Salem’s Lot as a way to dispel the vampire’s hypnotism.
As mentioned in the Firestarter essay, King reuses the name Patrick Hocksetter. There is no link between the two beyond their names.
Pennywise gets a ton of references in other non-King books, To even try to list them here would be madness. Just look for red balloons, creepy clowns that talk about floating or voices in sewers and you’re set, though I’ll note them when I get to them in the future. But we do get a sense of Pennywise’s place (or how it perceives Its place) in the burgeoning King cosmology as described briefly in The Gunslinger. Pennywise’s source, the Macroverse, exists as part of a dimension outside our universe alongside Maturin. It speculates on a higher force guiding events, even higher than Maturin, which could even be a metatextual reference to King himself as the author of events (imagination is a killer skill, unlike a certain gunslinger). The Deadlights are also mentioned here for the first time as unimaginable malevolent cosmic energy. From how they’re described, I think Pennywise is merely a form the Deadlights take, and though Pennywise’s form is destroyed, the Deadlights still exist in some form in the Macroverse.
There are also a number of non-King references sprinkled throughout. Four of Pennywise’s victims are called Betty, Veronica, Cheryle and Moose, all characters from Archie Comics. Archie Comics has a happy feel-good vibe of the 50s running through it, so King killing off a couple of characters is his mission statement on the reality of 50s, as well as probably a bit of fun for him! Another of Pennywise’s victims is named Eddie Corcoran, which must be a reference to Eddie Cochran. King has shown familiarity with Cochran’s music, having used him in Christine as one of his many epigraphs. Later in the book during the third interlude, there is a mention of an ‘old geezer who paints those funny pictures,’ called Pickman, a reference to HP Lovecraft’s short story Pickman’s Model.
A reference that goes otherwise unexplained, but as the Losers explore 29 Neibolt Street, Richie comes across a bunch of rats with their tails knotted together. This is called a Rat King from folklore, and is usually a bad omen of things to come.
Finally, John Koontz is one of Pennywise’s 80s victims, a nasty prison guard which may well be a less than flattering shout out to author and dog lover Dean Koontz, whom King once described as ‘sometimes… just awful.‘ That Koontz is killed by a dog-version of It only adds more fuel to that speculation.
For a bonus first-in-a-series essay that looks at King’s Queer Representation, click here.
UP NEXT: A return to the journey to The Dark Tower where we’ll begin The Drawing of the Three.
Deeper Thoughts for the Horror Inclined 