It

It is Stephen King's 1986 novel, the 1,138-page horror epic that is also one of the great American novels about childhood, friendship, and how the past stays with us. The Losers' Club (Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Stan Uris, Mike Hanlon) fought a shape-shifting evil in Derry, Maine in 1958. Twenty-seven years later, in 1985, the evil returns. Mike, the only Loser who stayed in Derry, calls the others home.

The dual-timeline structure is what makes the novel work as a novel rather than as a horror set piece. The 1958 chapters are some of the best childhood-friendship prose in American fiction; the 1985 chapters are about the cost of having to remember what you survived. The interleaved Derry history sections (a 1906 ironworks explosion, a 1929 Black Spot fire, a 1958 lumberyard murder) build a fictional Maine town with the weight of a real one. Pennywise the Dancing Clown is the most-quoted antagonist, but the actual subject of the book is the way Derry's adults refuse to see what their children see.

Recommended as required King reading, as one of the canonical 1980s American novels alongside Beloved and White Noise, and as the source for both the strong 2017/2019 film adaptations and the messy 1990 miniseries. The Steven Weber audiobook (44 hours) is one of the best contemporary audiobook productions. Five stars without reservation.