Written : This book was begun in Bangor, Maine, on September 9th, 1981, and completed in Bangor, Maine, on December 28th, 1985.

Intended original titles : Derry

The novel shifts from the years 1958 to 1985, two remarkably active periods for It...

Synopsis :
A promise made twenty-eight years ago calls seven adults to reunite in Derry, Maine, where as teenagers they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city's children. Unsure that their Losers Club had vanquished the creature all those years ago, the seven had vowed to return to Derry if IT should ever reappear. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that summer return as they prepare to do battle with the monster lurking in Derry's sewers once more.

In 1978 my family was living in Boulder, Colorado. One day on our way back from lunch at a pizza emporium, our brand-new AMC Matador dropped its transmission-literally. The damn thing fell out on Pearl Street. True embarrassment is standing in the middle of a busy downtown street, grinning idiotically while people examine your marooned car and the large greasy black thing lying under it. Two days later the dealership called at about five in the afternoon. Everything was jake-I could pick up the car any time. The dealership was three miles away. I thought about calling a cab but decided that the walk would be good for me. The AMC dealership was in an industrial park set off by itself on a patch of otherwise deserted land a mile from the strip of fast-food joints and gas stations that mark the eastern edge of Boulder. A narrow unlit road led to this outpost. By the time I got to the road it was twilight-in the mountains the end of day comes in a hurry-and I was aware of how alone I was. About a quarter of a mile along this road was a wooden bridge, humped and oddly quaint, spanning a stream. I walked across it. I was wearing cowboy boots with rundown heels, and I was very aware of the sound they made on the boards; they sounded like a hollow clock. I thought of the fairy tale called "The Three Billy-Goats Gruff" and wondered what I would do if a troll called out from beneath me, "Who is trip-trapping upon my bridge?" All of a sudden I wanted to write a novel about a real troll under a real bridge. I stopped, thinking of a line by Marianne Moore, something about "real toads in imaginary gardens," only it came out "real trolls in imaginary gardens." A good idea is like a yo-yo-it may go to the end of its string, but it doesn't die there; it only sleeps. Eventually it rolls back up into your palm. I forgot about the bridge and the troll in the business of picking up my car and signing the papers, but it came back to me off and on over the next two years. I decided that the bridge could be some sort of symbol-a point of passing. I started thinking of Bangor, where I had lived, with its strange canal bisecting the city, and decided that the bridge could be the city, if there was something under it. What's under a city? Tunnels. Sewers. Ah! What a good place for a troll! Trolls should live in sewers! A year passed. The yo-yo stayed down at the end of its string, sleeping, and then it came back up. I started to remember Stratford, Connecticut, where I had lived for a time as a kid. In Stratford there was a library where the adult section and the children's section was connected by a short corridor. I decided that the corridor was also a bridge, one across which every goat of a child must risk trip-trapping to become an adult. About six months later I thought of how such a story might be cast; how it might be possible to create a ricochet effect, interweaving the stories of children and the adults they become. Sometime in the summer of 1981 I realized that I had to write about the troll under the bridge or leave him-IT-forever.

The novel It stands at the center of King's career. It is the peak of all that had gone before, and the commencement of everyhting which followed. To call it a magnum opus, then, does not seem flagrant or premature, for It is simply Stephen King at his very best.
It follows the lives of seven children, exploring their town, their families, their enemies, and their greatest fears. Often, these outside influences intertwine and build upon each other, until they are indistinguishable. For these children are what as known as "Losers," outcasts of their society in a small maine town in 1958. There is the stutterer ("Stuttering Bill" Dengrough), the fat kid (King's best human creation Ben Hanscom), the abused girl (Beverly Marsh), one of the town's only black kids (Mike Hanlon), the Jewish kid (Stan Uris), the Mama's Boy (Eddie Kaspbrack) and the obnoxious kid with glasses (Richie Tozier). All could be merely sterotypes, symbolic of entire classes, but but King infuses them with a greater humanity. They actually become real. And they come together, perhaps through benevolent forces greater than them. Similar forces, these dark and sinister, are against them. Their town, Derry, is not like other towns. The murder rate (especially the child-murder rate) in Derry is higher than in any other small town of comperable size, enourmously so during periods every twenty-seven years or so. The Losers begin to peice together a pattern, and discover that the murders can be all followed back to once source: a creature they come to know as It who lives in the sewers of Derry and likes to feed on children.
It is a powerful being, able to read people telepathically and assume to form of the thing they're most scared of. Ben sees The Mummy, Richie sees the Teenage Werewolf, and Bill sees the ghost of his dead brother, George. And they are the lucky ones, the ones who got away. But It, because of It's reliance on Derry, has infused Itself into the town consciousness. In a way, Derry is It, and It is Derry, and the children of the town are the only who know.
The novel shifts from the years 1958 to 1985, two remarkably active periods for It. In 1985, the Loser's Club of 1958 has grown up, become successful, and live lives that are only mere echoes of their pasts. Then, Mike Hanlon makes six phone calls, and they find they now must return home to fight their greatest demon. The question isn't whether they will come, but whether they can become children again, recapture the magic and fear that ruled their lives in those younger days. Can they?
The answer to that question lies in King's most complex and compelling narrative, a wonder of a novel that stands alone as King's best work to date. This book examines fear, faith, belief and magic, creating King's most memorable characters and his most horrifying vision. It is, plainly put, an experience you will never forget (even if the Loser's Club does.)