Going Back at IT

Confession time: I’ve never read Stephen King’s IT.

Well, that’s not entirely true–I’ve tried to read IT four separate times over the last thirty years. I was twelve when the book first came out, and I remember taking my dad’s copy after he was done with it. I was a big Stephen King fan, having gobbled up all of his short stories to that point. I’d also recently finished Pet Sematary, so I was excited when I saw IT on our kitchen table one day.

But despite two separate tries in the next year or so, I wasn’t able to get more than halfway through the book. In the years since, I’ve picked up IT on two other occasions, determined to finish the story, but to no avail. I remember some truly shocking and horrifying moments in the parts that I read, but for me there were times where things almost slowed to a stop, and I just couldn’t get through the rest.

I’ve seen the made-for-TV movie with Jack Tripper, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Judge Harry Stone, Lana Lang and and Jon-Boy Walton. I watched that entire miniseries, although it suffered from a lot of the same pacing issues I had struggled with in the book. I’ve seen it a few times in recent years and watched it through each time. As a “kids fighting monsters” story, I really love the core of IT.

But now, we are finally getting the much-delayed big-screen adaptation of IT. This week, we got our first glimpse of the new Pennywise, played by Hemlock Grove’s Bill Skarsgard. And all the talk of IT got me to thinking–perhaps the fifth time’s the charm.

So, I’m diving back into IT. I’ll be posting a blog or two about my experience with the story over the next month or so. If you’ve never read IT, or want to revisit the story before the movie comes out, I invite you to rad along with me. You can always hit me up on Twitter @SeeBrianWrite.