67 pages 2 hours read

Stephen King

It

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1986

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“Derry: The First Interlude”

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Summary: “Derry: The First Interlude”

The section begins with a note stating that all of the Interludes are “drawn from Derry: An Authorized Town History” (147), written by Mike Hanlon.

The Interlude starts with the question: “Can an entire city by haunted?” (147). Mike gives one definition of haunt, when used as a noun, as “a feeding place for animals” (147). He writes that his memories started to come back as he was reading about the hearings of the boys who had killed Adrian Mellon. That is when he began “to know that Its time might be coming round again” (148).

Mike works in Derry as a librarian and does much of his research at the library: “Part of me—the part Bill would call the voice of the Turtle—says I should call them all, tonight” (149). He says that if he calls them, he does not believe that all of them will survive the call. Mike feels guilty about the potential calls because he is “the only one who remembers, because [he's] the only one who stayed in Derry” (150).

So far there is only Mellon and two dead children. Although Mike is not certain that It has returned yet, he writes that the cycles of violence in Derry start approximately every twenty-seven years, and the timeline fits these three new deaths: “To know what a place is, I really do believe one has to know what it was” (152).