Stephen King It

This book is gratefully dedicated to my children. My mother and my wife taught me how to be a man. My children taught me how to be free.

NAOMI RACHEL KING, at fourteen;

JOSEPH HILLSTROM KING, at twelve;

OWEN PHILIP KING, at seven.

Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.

S.K.

“This old town been home long as I remember This town gonna be here long after I’m gone. East side west side take a close look “round her You been down but you’re still in my bones.”

–The Michael Stanley Band

“Old friend, what are you looking for?

After those many years abroad you come

With images you tended

Under foreign skies

Far away from your own land.”

–George Seferis

“Out of the blue and into the black.”

–Neil Young

 

 

 

Part 1
THE SHADOW BEFORE

“They begin!

The perfections are sharpened

The flower spreads its colored petals

wide in the sun

But the tongue of the bee

misses them

They sink back into the loam

crying out

–you may call it a cry

that creeps over them, a shiver

as they wilt and disappear…”

–William Carlos Williams, Paterson

 

“Born down in a dead man’s town”

–Bruce Springsteen