It (novel)

It

File:It cover.jpg First edition cover
Author	Stephen King
Cover artist	Bob Giusti, illustration Amy Hill, lettering
Country	United States
Genre	Horror novel
Publisher	Viking
Publication date	September 15, Template:Ylt
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	1138
ISBN	0670813028
Preceded by	The Talisman
Followed by	The Eyes of the Dragon

It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story is about seven kids being terrorized by a shape-shifting, child-killing malevolent entity - known as "It" - that takes the form of their deepest fears but primarily appears in the form of a clown, calling itself "Pennywise the Dancing Clown." The novel features a nonlinear narrative which alternates between two different time periods and shifts among the different perspectives and stories of its seven protagonists. It deals with themes which would eventually become King staples: the power of memory, childhood trauma and the ugliness lurking behind a small-town facade.

The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1987, and received nominations for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards that same year. Publishers Weekly listed It as the best-selling book in America in 1986.

Plot

1957–58

In October of 1957, a six year old boy named George Denbrough chases his paper boat into a storm drain. To his surprise, the boat is caught in the sewer by Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The clown offers him the boat and a bunch of balloons, then kills George by ripping his arm out of the socket when he reaches into the drain to retrieve his boat from Pennywise's hand.

Eight months later, during the summer of 1958, seven children are drawn together as a group through a multitude of events. Ben Hanscom, an overweight boy who has no friends, flees from Henry Bowers, Belch Huggins, and Victor Criss, three local bullies who attempt to carve Henry’s name into his belly. While running, he comes across Bill Denbrough, George's older brother, who has a stutter, and Eddie Kaspbrak, an asthmatic boy, who are making a dam in an undeveloped, jungle-like part of Derry called the Barrens. Ben, with an inclination toward architecture, helps the two improve the dam and soon is working with Bill and Eddie along with Richie Tozier, a loud-mouthed boy with thick glasses, and Stan Uris, a boy whose Jewish ancestry makes him a frequent target of hazing. All five of the boys have been plagued by Henry Bowers in the past.

Later on, at his home, Bill looks at a picture of George that turns and winks at him. When he recounts his story to his friends, Ben admits to having seen (and been nearly seized by) a mummy the previous January, and Eddie recounts being attacked by a leper at an abandoned house. Richie scoffs at the stories, but he and Bill see a picture of Pennywise in George's yearbook that comes to life as Georgie’s had. Bill takes his father's pistol and goes with Richie to the abandoned house, thinking that the person behind the supernatural events and the recent string of killings may be there. At the house the two boys are attacked by the entity, with Bill perceiving it as the clown and Richie as a werewolf, and both barely escape with their lives on Bill’s bicycle (“Silver”).

Meanwhile, Beverly Marsh, a girl from the poor side of town with an abusive father, hears voices of dead children in the drain and witnesses a gout of blood spurt from the sink. Her father and mother do not see anything. When she becomes friends with and tells Ben, Eddie, and Stan, they help Beverly clean up the blood. Stan later admits that earlier that spring he witnessed a waterlogged corpse in the town’s standpipe.

As the summer goes on, the six kids realize that the entity they’re up against is extremely powerful. Through research, Bill discovers an ancient ritual known as the Ritual of Chüd, in which a monster and mortal lock tongues and attempt to make the other laugh. Bill believes this ritual will allow them to defeat and kill It. As they are discussing this, a black boy named Michael Hanlon is being chased by Henry and his gang. Henry chases Mike right to where the now-self-proclaimed Losers’ Club resides, and a rock fight ensues between the two gangs with the Losers’ Club ending up the winner. Mike is inducted into the club. They tell Mike about It, and he recounts a story of being chased by an enormous, trailer-sized bird in a field. He brings the Losers an album of his father's old pictures of Derry. In one of them, Pennywise appears and threatens to kill all of the Losers. With the group at a loss for what to do, Ben comes up with the idea of an old Indian "smoke-hole" ritual to induce visions and give guidance. When the idea is put into practice, Richie and Mike hallucinate (although the event is implied to be akin to time travel), see It arrive on Earth in prehistoric times and realize It has been here for millions of years. They express doubt over their ability to battle the monster.

Later, while Eddie is walking home from the pharmacy, Henry, Victor, Belch, and Patrick Hockstetter (a sometimes-member of Henry’s gang, who in a backstory is revealed to have murdered his baby brother and scores of animals around town) attack him. Henry breaks Eddie's arm in retaliation for the rock fight. Shortly after this, Beverly, hiding behind a junked car in the town dump, witnesses Patrick get assaulted by Henry after he masturbated him and was bold enough to offer him oral sex, and threatens to tell of Patrick's favorite place to store the bodies of the animals he has killed if he tells anyone of what happened between them. Patrick decides to dispose of the animals bodies, but when he opens the refrigerator, It, in the form of several winged leeches, attacks and incapitates Patrick by removing half the blood from his body. Then, It assumes the form of Pennywise and drags Patrick into It's lair which Beverly partially sees. At first believing that it is all fake, Beverly soon learns otherwise when It's leech form attacks her, one biting her, though she manages to escape.

After buying a first-aid kit and treating Beverly's wound, the Losers return to the refrigerator and discover a message from It written in Patrick's blood, warning them to stop before It kills them. Enraged, Bill vows to kill It at any cost.

After Eddie is released from the hospital, the Losers get together and Ben makes two slugs out of silver, believing the cinematic convention that silver will kill monsters. They go back to the abandoned house, where It attacks them in werewolf form, primarily focusing its efforts on Bill, their leader. After savagely slashing Ben across the abdomen, It is driven away after being injured by the silver slugs, but not before vowing to kill them all.

Later, in August, Henry, whose sanity had been steadily eroding the entire summer, is given a switchblade knife by It. After murdering his father, Henry, seeming to be both in a trance and in a wildly lunatic state, takes the unsuspecting Victor and Belch to the Barrens and attacks the Losers, driving them into the sewers. The three bullies follow. Under Derry, It attacks in the form of Frankenstein's monster, decapitating Victor. Belch puts up a fight, but his face is quickly torn off, and Henry manages to escape. The Losers press on and confront It in the form of a giant eye, which they successfully repel. They finally come upon It's lair, where it resides in the form of a giant spider, and, in what appears to be the Ritual of Chüd, Bill injures It and It flees. The Losers then gradually realize that they are lost in the sewers, and that with their common enemy having fled they have lost their purpose as a group, and begin to succumb to panic. Using the only way available to her to calm them all down sufficiently to bring them together again so they can find their way back to the surface, Beverly has sexual intercourse with each of the boys in turn, starting with Eddie and ending with Bill.

The gang finally escapes from the sewers, emerging at sunset. Stan cuts their palms with a shard of a Coke bottle and the seven make a blood oath to return to Derry if It should ever return.

1984–85

In 1984, a homosexual youth named Adrian Mellon is thrown off a bridge by a group of youths. They are arrested for murder when Adrian's mutilated corpse is found, though one of the murderers (as well as Mellon’s own boyfriend) claims that he saw a clown kill Adrian underneath the bridge. When a string of violent child-killings hits Derry following Adrian's death, Mike, now the town’s librarian and the only one of the Losers’ Club to remain in Derry, calls up his six friends and reminds them of their childhood promise to return. Bill is now a well-known writer of horror novels, living in England and married to an actress called Audra; Beverly is in the fashion industry and very successful but married to an abusive man called Tom Rogan; Eddie runs a limousine rental company and is married to a woman exactly like his mother; Richie is a professional comedian with a radio show and talk show; Ben is now thin and a successful architect; and Stan is an accountant married to a woman called Patty. Five of them return to Derry with only the dimmest awareness of why they are doing so, having almost completely forgotten virtually every aspect of their childhood (most notably their encounter with It). Stan, who it is implied still remembers the entire thing (or at least does when Mike contacts him) slits his wrists while taking a bath, writing the word IT in blood on the shower wall with his dying strength.

The remaining Losers’ Club meets at a Chinese restaurant for dinner, where, after a long meal and stories from the intervening years, Mike enlightens them to the apparent nature of It, gleaned from a large amount of research he has done himself: It awakens once roughly every twenty-seven years for twelve to sixteen months at a time to feed on children before going into slumber again. He suggests that, due directly to their intervention in the summer of 1958, they injured It so badly that the cycle, which usually came to an end in the winter months of the year, stopped abruptly and prematurely in August. The group holds a vote in which they decided to attempt to kill It once and for all. Mike suggests that before deciding what exactly to do, each Loser takes a walk around Derry to become re-acquainted with their childhood home, and also decides not to tell them anymore and allow them to remember what occurred on their own, fearing that they may commit suicide as Stan had done if they discover what happened before they are ready to remember it all. As they finish the meal, their fortune cookies are revealed to have a multitude of disgusting things inside of them, such as a huge cricket and a human eye, courtesy of It.

While walking around Derry, many of the Losers witness manifestations of It. Ben goes to the library, his favorite place in Derry as a child, and sees It, first as Pennywise and then as a vampire. Eddie goes to an old baseball field and is attacked by It in the form of the leper that pursued him in his youth. Beverly goes back to her father's house and is greeted warmly by a kindly old woman who turns out to be It. Richie goes to a statue of Paul Bunyan and It appears to him there after Richie recalls that It tried to kill him in the form of the statue. The four all escape danger. Bill, while not seeing It, does find his old childhood bike in a junk shop, remembering how it saved his and Richie’s lives. He purchases it and takes it to Mike’s home to fix it up.

Unknown to the Losers, three other people are also converging on Derry: Bill's worried wife, Audra Phillips; Beverly's abusive husband, Tom Rogan; and Henry Bowers, who is driven by It to escape the mental institution where he resides, having been convicted for the murder of his father and the children killed by It (including Belch, Victor, and Patrick) back in 1958.

The Losers meet at Mike’s library after closing time and reminisce about the summer of 1958. Afterwards, the Losers leave for their hotel rooms. Mike stays at the Library a little longer and is confronted by Henry. After Mike briefly taunts Henry, stating that It will most likely kill him after he kills the Losers, they fight and Henry stabs him in the leg, hitting his femoral artery. Mike badly injures Henry with a letter opener but Henry is able to escape, and Mike, using his belt as a tourniquet, calls the hospital and successfully gets help despite Pennywise's attempts to block him. Henry, with the guidance of It (in the form of Belch’s reanimated corpse), and transported by the cursed car Christine, goes to the hotel and attacks Eddie. Henry successfully breaks in to Eddie’s room, but Eddie manages to disarm Henry, gouge out his right eye with a broken bottle, then stab him in the hand. Henry knocks Eddie back and Eddie breaks his arm in the same place that Henry had broken it before. Henry then falls on him and is impaled on the bottle, finally dying.

Meanwhile, It gets Tom Rogan to kidnap Audra. Tom brings Audra to It’s lair under the city. Upon perceiving It in true form (“the deadlights”), Audra becomes catatonic and Tom drops dead in shock. Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, and Eddie, after calling the library and finding out that Mike may be near death and understanding that the town, which is essentially under the control of It, will not help them, realize that they are being forced into another confrontation with It. They descend into the sewers.

While in the sewers, the remaining Losers use their strength as a group to send energy to a hospitalized Mike, who fights off a nurse that is under the control of It. Later, deep within the sewers, It appears as George but Bill overcomes the illusion. They reach It’s lair again. Bill and Richie engage It in the Ritual of Chüd again and manage to severely injure It. Eddie helps them and saves their lives, but he is killed in the process. Beverly stays with Eddie and the traumatized Audra, who has been woven into a giant spider web by It’s spider form. Ben starts destroying the eggs that It had lain. Bill and Richie follow it deeper into the cavern and attack it. Bill crushes It's heart between his hands, finally killing it. At the same time a storm sweeps through Derry and the downtown area collapses. Later, Michael, writing in a journal, concludes that Derry is finally dying.

The novel ends with the various Losers returning home and forgetting about It, Derry and each other all over again. As a sign that It really is dead and a watchman is no longer needed, Mike’s memory of the events of the book also begin to fade, much to his relief. Bill is the last to leave Derry. Before he goes, he takes Audra, who is still catatonic, for a ride on Silver, hoping that they can beat her catatonia the same way he and Richie beat It in 1958. They succeed, and the story concludes with Bill musing over his forgotten childhood.

It

"It" apparently originated in a void containing and surrounding the universe, a place referred to in the novel as the "Macroverse" (a concept similar to the later established Todash Darkness of The Dark Tower series). It's real name is Bob Gray or Pennywise (although at several points in the novel, It claims its true name to be Robert Gray) and is christened "It" by the group of children who later confront It. Likewise, It's true form is never truly comprehended. It's favorite form is a clown (with fangs and large claws when it stalks a child) known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and It's final form in the physical realm is that of an enormous spider, but even this is only the closest the human mind can get to approximating It's actual physical form. It's natural form exists in a realm beyond the physical, which It calls the "deadlights". Bill comes dangerously close to seeing the deadlights, but successfully defeats "It" before this happens, though during their first confrontation with It, Ben believes that he nearly sees Its true form, and nearly panics as a result. As such, the deadlights are never seen and It's true form outside the physical realm is never revealed, only described as writhing, destructive orange lights. Coming face to face with the deadlights drives any living being instantly insane (a common H. P. Lovecraft device). The only known person to face the deadlights and survive is Audra Phillips, Bill's wife.

It's natural enemy is "The Turtle", another ancient Macroverse dweller who, eons ago, created our universe and possibly others. The Turtle shows up again in King's series The Dark Tower. The book suggests that It, along with the Turtle, are themselves creations of a separate, omnipotent creator referred to as "the Other". The Turtle and It are eternal enemies, though It tells Bill that the Turtle died a few years ago when he "puked in his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two". It arrived in our world in a massive, cataclysmic event similar to an asteroid impact, in the place that would, in time, become Derry, Maine.

It's power is apparently quite vast; during the second Ritual of Chüd, It offers the Losers money, power, and supernatural lifespans if they spare It. Of course, It could merely have been bluffing in order to save itself.

Through the novel, some events are described through It's point of view, through which It describes itself as the "superior" being, with the Turtle as someone "close to his superiority" and humans as mere "toys." It describes that it prefers to kill and devour children, not by nature, rather because the fears of children are easier to interpret in a physical form and thus children are easier to fill with terror, which It says is akin to "salt(ing) the meat". It is continuously surprised by the children's victories and near the end, It begins to wonder if it perhaps isn't as superior as it had once thought. However, It never believes that the individual children are strong enough to defeat It, only through "the Other" working through them as a group.

Cycle

For millions of years, It dwelt under Derry, awaiting the arrival of humans, which It somehow knew would occur. Once people settled over It's dwelling place, It adopted a cycle of hibernating for long periods and waking approximately every 27 years. It's waking spells are marked by extraordinary violence, which is inexplicably overlooked or outright forgotten by those who witness It. It's awakening and return to hibernation mark the greatest instances of violence during its time awake.

• 1715 – 1716: It awoke.
• 1740 – 1743: It awoke and started a three-year reign of terror that culminated with the disappearance of over 300 settlers from Derry Township, much like the Roanoke Island mystery.
• 1769 – 1770: It awoke.
• 1851: It awoke when a man named John Markson poisoned his family, then committed suicide by eating a white-nightshade mushroom, causing an excruciating death.
• 1876 – 1879: It awoke, then went back into hibernation after a group of lumberjacks were found murdered near the Kenduskeag.
• 1904 – 1906: It awoke when a lumberjack named Claude Heroux murdered a number of men in a bar with an axe. Heroux was promptly pursued by a mob of townsfolk and hanged. It returned to hibernation when the Kitchener Ironworks exploded, killing 108 people, 88 of them being children who were engaged in an Easter egg hunt.
• 1929 – 1930: It awoke when a group of Derry citizens gunned down a group of gangsters known as the Bradley Gang. It returned to hibernation when the Maine Legion of White Decency, a Northern counterpart to the Ku Klux Klan, burned down an African-American army nightclub which was called "The Black Spot." One of the survivors, Dick Halloran, appeared in King's earlier novel, The Shining.
• 1957 – 1958: It awoke during a great storm which flooded part of the city, and murdered George Denbrough. It then met its match when the Losers forced It to return to an early hibernation when wounded by the young Bill Denbrough in the first Ritual of Chüd.
• 1984 – 1985: It awoke when three young homophobic bullies beat up a young gay couple, Adrian Mellon and Don Hagarty, throwing Mellon off a bridge, (which echoed real life events in Maine). It was finally "destroyed" in the second Ritual of Chüd by the adult Bill Denbrough, Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak and Ben Hanscom.

In the intervening periods between each pair of events, a series of child murders occur, which are never solved. The book's surface explanation as to why these murders are never reported on the national news is that location matters to a news story - a series of murders, no matter how gruesome, doesn't get reported if they happen in a small town. However, the book's implied reason for why the atrocities go unnoticed is far more sinister: It won't allow them to be. In fact, It's power over the town is so absolute that It's death in the second Ritual of Chüd causes an enormous storm that damages the downtown part of Derry.

Although It is seemingly defeated by the novel's end, there are hints in King's later works that It is still alive. Furthermore, It had laid eggs shortly before its defeat and whether or not they were all destroyed is never resolved.

The Losers Club

The seven Losers are the children who are united by their unhappy lives, their misery at being the victims of bullying by Henry Bowers and their eventual struggle to overcome It.

William "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough: Also known as "Big Bill", he gets his nickname from his bad stuttering problem, which became much more severe after his brother's death; although his mother attributes it to a car accident that occurred when Bill was three, it's implied to be more of a psychological problem than a physical one. His brother George was killed by It in 1957. Bill feels slightly guilty about the murder, because he'd been the one who sent George outside to play. Ever since George died, Bill has been partially ignored by his parents who also blamed him for his brother's death. Beverly Marsh develops an intense crush on him during their time in the Losers Club. When the group returned to Derry in 1985 they sleep together but do not carry their relationship any further. He is the most determined and resourceful of the Losers and is the one who, both in 1958 and 1985, confronts It in the Ritual of Chüd and eventually destroys It. As an adult he marries Audra Phillips, a successful actress bearing a strong resemblance to Bev. As with other King characters Jack Torrance, Paul Sheldon, Ben Mears, Bobbi Anderson, Thaddeus Beaumont, Mike Noonan, Sue Snell, Mort Rainey and numerous others, in 1985, Bill is a famous writer.

Benjamin "Ben" Hanscom: He was dubbed "Haystack" by Richie, after the professional wrestler Haystacks Calhoun. Because of his obesity, he has become a frequent victim of Henry Bowers, who once used a buck knife to try to carve his name into his stomach (he managed an unfinished 'H' before Ben escaped). His father died in a plane crash in the army. He also develops an intense crush on Beverly Marsh and the two leave Derry together after the 1985 defeat of It. In later life, he becomes a successful architect and sheds his excess weight. His mechanical skills become useful to the Losers, from making two silver slugs to building an underground clubhouse where Mike and Richie have a vision of It's cosmic crash into the site which would later become Derry, Maine.

Beverly "Bev" Marsh: The only female in the group, Beverly is an attractive, chain smoking, redheaded girl from the poorest part of Derry. She has an abusive father (referred to as her stepfather at one point in the novel) who beats her regularly. She develops a crush on Bill Denbrough and her skill with a slingshot is a key factor in battling It. All the boys are described as being fond of Beverly; at some point each has romantic or sexual feelings for her. As a child, her father abused her while using his constant catch phrase, "I worry about you sometimes Bev, I worry a lot." As an adult, she becomes a successful fashion designer, but endures several abusive relationships, culminating in her marriage to Tom Rogan, who sees her as a sex object and disapproves of her chain smoking, using it as an excuse to beat her up. After a brief liaison with Bill, she subsequently departs Derry with Ben following the death of her husband (who was used by It to nearly kill the Losers).

Richard "Richie" Tozier: Known as "Trashmouth", Richie is the Losers' most lighthearted member, always cracking jokes and doing impersonations, which prove very powerful weapons against It. He is "too intelligent for his own good" and channels his boredom in hyper-active wisecracking, to the point of being self-destructive—his flippant remark to Henry Bowers leads to almost getting beaten up by Henry and his friends. His childhood trauma stemmed from his rapid-fire insults being compulsive and almost subconsciously triggered. He is the most devoted to keeping the group together as he sees 7 as a magical number and believes the group should have no more, no less. In later life he is a successful disc jockey. As the DJ he uses his once-annoying and unrealistic voices as one of his main attractions. Like Ben, he has a crush on Beverly though it is not crucial to the plot. He has bad eyesight and wears thick glasses as a child, but changes to contact lenses as an adult.

Eddie "Eds" Kaspbrak: Eddie is a frail hypochondriac whose asthma is psychosomatic. At one point in the story the man who runs the pharmacy told him that he had a placebo and that his medicine is nothing but water. He has a worrying, domineering mother who, ever since his father died, has used Munchausen syndrome by proxy to bully him into caring for her. Eddie is easily the most physically fragile member of the group. Richie calls him "eds", which he hates (as is demonstrated when It bites off Eddie's arm and his dying words are to Richie, who calls him "eds": "Richie, don't call me eds. You know I...I... [without finishing his sentence, "I hate it when you call me that"]"). He is a Methodist. When Henry and his friends break his arm and his mother tries to prevent the Losers from visiting Eddie in the hospital, he finally stands up to his mother and tells her that he is no longer the helpless kid she thinks he is. He eventually runs a successful limousine business but is married to a woman very similar to his mother. He is eventually killed by It in the final struggle after using his inhaler to wound It, making him the only direct adult victim of It. He also finds the strength to defend himself from Henry Bowers, eventually deforming and killing him in self defense with a broken bottle, even though in the fight his arm is re-broken in the same spot Henry broke it in a scuffle when they were kids. He bleeds to death in the sewers after his arm is bitten off, ultimately dying in the gang's arms.

Michael "Mike" Hanlon: Mike is the last to join the Losers. He is the only African American child in the group. When he is racially persecuted by Henry Bowers, the Losers fight back against Bowers in a massive rock fight. Mike is the only one of the Losers to stay behind in Derry (and thus the only one to retain his memory of the events of 1958) and becomes the town librarian. He is the one who beckons the others back when the killings begin again in 1985. His father kept an album filled with photos that were important to Derry's history, including several of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Through the knowledge he acquires of Derry and It, he becomes an amateur historian of the town. He is seriously wounded by Henry Bowers and nearly dies. He later recovers from his wounds but like the others starts to lose his memory of the experience, and of the other Losers. It was later revealed in Insomnia that Mike continued as a librarian and was the boss of one of that book's primary protagonists in 1993.

Stanley "Stan" Uris: Also known as "Stan the Man", Stan is a skeptical, bookish Jewish member of the group. He admits that his family takes a relaxed approach to their faith, rather than practicing it devoutly. Logic, order, and cleanliness are deeply ingrained in his psyche. He is the least willing to accept that It actually exists and relies on logic more than anything else. Stan, much like Mike, is racially persecuted by Henry. As a child his main hobby was birdwatching. He later becomes a partner in a large Atlanta-based accounting firm. However, upon receiving Mike's phone call, he commits suicide by slitting his wrists in the bathtub and writing 'IT' in his blood on the wall. He chose death over returning to Derry to face the ancient terror despite being the one to slice the Losers' palms in a blood oath. It is also implied in the book that Stan remembers more about the children's encounters with It than the others do, sometimes commenting about the Turtle and other events from his time in Derry, though he claims that he doesn't remember what those phrases mean.

Adaptations

Main article: It (1990 film)

In 1990, the novel was loosely adapted into a television movie featuring John Ritter as Ben Hanscom, Harry Anderson as Richie Tozier, Tim Reid as Mike Hanlon, Annette O'Toole as Beverly Marsh, Richard Thomas as Bill Denbrough and Tim Curry as Pennywise.

On 12 March 2009, Warner Bros. announced that the production of a new adaptation of Stephen King's novel had started. Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Doug Davison are set to produce.

Links to other King works

Links to short stories and novellas

• Children of the Corn: In Ben Hanscom's part of "Six Phone Calls" It tells us that he is in a town past Gatlin, Nebraska. Gatlin is the setting for King's short story "Children of the Corn".
• The End of the Whole Mess: Mike Hanlon refers to the lack of crime in a small town in Texas due to the water, a reference to King's short story "The End of the Whole Mess".
• Gray Matter: In King's short story "Gray Matter" an elderly character explains that there are dark corners of the world beyond human comprehension. As an example he mentions a friend of his, who was once a sewer worker but unexpectedly quit his job. The man's reason for quitting, he claimed, was that he had seen a giant spider in the sewer tunnels.
• Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Steven Bishoff Dubay, one of the boys who beat up Adrian Mellon, is sent to Shawshank State Prison. Shawshank also figures in King's novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption".

Links to novels

• Christine: The car that picks up Henry to take him to the Derry Town House is a '58 Plymouth Fury, red and white, and driven by a corpse, in reference to Christine. Another reference to Christine can be found in Henry's psychotic break where It talks to him as the moon through the window of his cell. Henry remembers his father would talk about saving up to buy an old Plymouth he'd seen, usually when he was quite drunk.
• The Dark Tower:

• The image of the Turtle as a god-like being in opposition to evil is identical in the Dark Tower series. Both works also speak of "the voice of the Turtle" as telepathic messages from this being aiding the protagonists in their attempt to destroy evil. Similarly, both works share the concept of deadlights.
• In the final Dark Tower novel, there is a robot named Stuttering Bill, a nickname shared by Bill Denbrough.

• The Dead Zone: At one point Beverly Marsh mentions "that crazy cop who killed all those women in Castle Rock, Maine". This is a reference to Frank Dodd, a character in The Dead Zone.
• Dreamcatcher:

• Dreamcatcher also has a scene set in Derry and also features a gang who do a very brave thing in their childhoods, but tells the story from their adult perspectives, with flashback scenes to their childhoods, much like in It. When Gary Jones, under the influence of Mr. Gray(who is looking for Derry's Standpipe) arrive, they come across a statue made in commemoration of "The Losers" and underneath is spray painted "Pennywise Lives!"
• Gary "Jonesy" Jones in "Dreamcatcher" is taken over by an invading alien calling itself "Mr. Gray". Bob Gray is one of Pennywise's aliases. Mike Hanlon and Richie Tozier also witness Pennywise coming to Earth in what they believe to be a spaceship in the Losers Club smoke ceremony.

• Duma Key: In the novel Duma Key, on the copyright permission's page it states "Permission to use lyrics from 'Dig' by Shark Puppy (R. Tozier, W. Denbrough)"
• Firestarter: The character of Patrick Hockstetter, who is killed by It in the junkyard, shares a name with a doctor in Firestarter
• Insomnia: Derry, Maine is the setting for King's Insomnia. The death of Adrian Mellon is also mentioned in that novel, and Mike Hanlon makes an appearance there as the head librarian in the Derry Public Library. Also, Ben Hanscom is mentioned briefly as the architect of the Derry Civics Center.
• Misery: Paul Sheldon in "Misery" remembers having been neighbors with Eddie Kasprack.
• The Shining: When telling him the story of the Black Spot, Mike Hanlon's father talks about an old army friend, Dick Hallorann, who was an army cook. Dick Hallorann is the psychic cook at the Overlook Hotel in King's The Shining.
• The Stand: Ben Hanscom stops in at the Red Wheel Bar in the town of Hemingford Home, Nebraska; this was Mother Abagail's home in The Stand, as well as that of siblings Larry and Katrina in The Last Rung on the Ladder.
• The Talisman: The massive storm at the end of the book is somewhat similar in circumstances to the series of events which happen once Jack grasps the Talisman near the end of the book The Talisman-but on a much more destructive scale.
• The Tommyknockers: Haven, a small village near Derry, is mentioned; this was later the setting for The Tommyknockers. In The Tommyknockers, a character hears chuckling noises coming from the drains in his house; later, another character driving through Derry glimpses "a clown, with silver dollars for eyes, holding a bunch of balloons" waving at him from a storm drain.
• Under the Dome: The symbol seen on the box powering the Dome is the same symbol found on the door to It's lair.

External links

• It at Worlds Without End