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Published in 1986 and weighing in at over 1,000 pages, It might be Stephen King’s best book: It’s the kind of unsettling story that digs under your skin, then wriggles through fat and muscle before lodging itself in bone. Alternately horrific and heartwarming, it’s a decades-spanning history of Derry, Maine, where an ancient horror lurks under the streets… and where futile denial gnaws away at those lucky enoughโ€”or unlucky enoughโ€”to survive.

Kingโ€™s singular ability to tap into this lizard-brain stuff made him a blockbuster author. Because heโ€™s a blockbuster author, a lot of his books get turned into movies. Because his ability is singular, most of those movies are bad.

This It isnโ€™t bad! This It is… fine? Yes. This It is fine.

With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.