Right Book, Right Time: On Rereading

 

It’s the Lord of the Rings, I think, where one of the characters says that “way leads on to way”; that you could start at a path leading nowhere more fantastic than your own front steps to the sidewalk, and from there you could go…well, anywhere at all. It’s the same way with stories. One leads to the next, to the next, and to the next; maybe they go in the direction you wanted to go, but maybe they don’t. Maybe in the end it’s the voice that tells the stories more than the stories themselves that matters.

It turns out that finishing Lord Have Mercy Part II dovetailed neatly with finishing my reread of the giant Clown Book, and that is in no way a coincidence. I spent six months on both, though one was a considerably more arduous task.

I’ve always thought it’s important for an author to reread their favorite books. The first reading is an unconscious effort – or, we’ll say less conscious. You’re riding the suspense, you’re turning the pages quickly. You’re reacting. And at the close of the story, you’re left with an impression that’s more emotional than cerebral.

The reread is where, now that you know what happens plot-wise, you can linger. You can dig into the mechanics of the story, highlight your favorite passages, and try to understand why this particular book left such a lasting impression, and then use those answers to further and better your own work. Rereading is an active process, and it’s also where the details shine especially bright.

I don’t really know what possessed me to pick Stephen King’s killer clown doorstop up late this summer – nostalgia, most likely, a repressed need to seek comfort in the words of someone who helped to shape my author voice – but it turned out to be the best decision I could have made while tackling Lord Have Mercy.

I decided I’d treat myself to a new paperback edition to give my screened-out eyes a breather, and in a twist of rather delightful kismet, it arrived on an afternoon when it was bucketing rain, and the cover’s got some permanent water damage. I was dismayed for about a nanosecond, and then chuckled over it. Maybe every copy of It should come with a wet, crinkled-up cover. Because I like to keep my books as pristine as possible – I’m one of those annoying nerds who doesn’t want the spines to get cracked – I usually copy all my favorite quotes down in a notebook as though I didn’t have better and more pressing things to do. But I took the highlighter to this one, and now, flipping through it, it becomes obvious, picked out in bright yellow, that this is one of those books that has managed to capture the whole of the human experience. It’s too long? It drags? Well, amongst its pages you’ll find some of the silliest, dumbest passages you’ve ever read, and you’ll find fear, and loss, and heartbreak, and absolute unfairness, and then you’ll come across lines that are absolute gems, that represent not just a deft hand with a typewriter, but a beautifully-subtle stroke at the deeper human feelings we so often, like Pennywise’s true form, cannot define in their exact shapes, and so we couch them in simpler, more wholesome terms.

Maybe, he thought, there aren’t any such things as good friends or bad friends – maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you’re hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they’re always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that’s what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.

It is the best and the worst of humanity laid out on the page, and in that sense, thirteen-hundred pages is quite the feat of restraint.

Reading it in a post-It: Chapter Two (2019) world definitely shaped the way I interpreted certain scenes.

“Put him down,” Beverly said. “He can stay here.”

“It’s too dark,” Richie sobbed. “You know…it’s too dark. Eds…he…”

“No, it’s okay,” Ben said. “Maybe this is where he’s supposed to be. I think maybe it is.”

They put him down, and Richie kissed Eddie’s cheek. Then he looked blindly up at Ben. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Come on, Richie.”

Richie got up, and turned toward the door. “F*ck you, B*tch!” he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot…

“Why’d you do that?” Beverly asked.

“I don’t know,” Richie said, but he knew well enough.

(He knew well enough is the line that sent me sprinting to ao3 in 2019, where there is some impeccable fix-it fic from some insanely talented writers.)

I had a moment, near the end, when I knew what was coming, and nearly skipped over Eddie’s death, but didn’t. That didn’t seem fair to leave him in the dark, even if the Losers had to. Also, I’m not a skipper. I don’t “skim” anything I read, and that’s what this post is really about.

Taking 500 words to get to the point? Me? No.

I don’t post about the books I read as often as I’d like, but when I do post about them, it’s not simply because I like chatting about books. I do, but, also, I feel like it’s an opportunity to help readers, or potential readers, understand my approach to writing so they know what to expect when they pick up one of my books.

The whole idea that anyone does skim a book they’re reading for supposed pleasure is anathema to me. I know everyone reads differently, but I genuinely can’t imagine just reading parts of a book, if I truly enjoyed it, to “get to the point” so I could move on to the next, and the next. I hate the ways Goodreads has turned the incomparable pleasure of reading into a beauty contest, a footrace, and a high school lunchroom. It’s provided me with the sad realization that there are people out there judging and rating books who genuinely do not like the act of reading. Who don’t read each and every word. Who don’t savor the imagery, and the play of language. The way a sentence can punch like a fist, and the way a sentence can trickle slowly and musically like a clear, cold stream burbling over smooth pebbles in the deep of a forest. I love words. I love what human beings – singular, unique, creative human beings, not AI users – can accomplish with the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. It is astonishing.

Some of my favorite moments in It are when King goes on his about-Derry tangents. Talk of topography, and vegetation. The history of the Standpipe, and the glass umbilicus connecting the adult to the children’s libraries. The imagery of the Barrens, and the trainyard, and the sunflowers nodding on their stalks in the yard at 29 Neibolt Street. Watching the bloody rags slosh and froth through the glass door of the washing machine in the laundromat. Fidgeting in the chair in Mr. Keene’s office, the milkshake dashed to the floor when Eddie learns what a placebo is.

That level of detail is what makes me love stories. It’s what makes me want to write stories. It’s…me.

I knew before I began Lord Have Mercy that it was going to put me through the wringer. I spent three years and five books building up to it, because I knew it would be a heavy commitment, and because I honestly didn’t want to deal with the skimmers and scanners whining about it when its monstrous, detail-heavy final form slumped out into the world. But rereading one of my absolute favorite books proved the shot in the arm I needed. It helped me take a deep breath and shove the noise aside and write the way I wanted to. The way it needs to be written. Lots of people can write lots of books, but this is my book. These are my brain children, and I’m the only one who can tell their story.

I know not everyone enjoys lengthy, detailed, layered books, but that’s what this is. This one’s for the deep-dive readers. For the lovers of words. For those who want the full Dartmoor experience. I crawled through the sewers of Derry, Maine, and came out in Knoxville, Tennessee, smiling. This one’s gonna be good.

“Nothing lasts forever,” Richie repeated. He looked up at Bill, and Bill saw tears cut slowly through the dirt on Richie’s cheeks.

“Except maybe for love,” Ben said.

…

They walked into the Town House on a wave of laughter, and as Bill pushed through the glass door, Beverly caught sight of something which she never spoke of but never forgot. For just a moment she saw their reflections in the glass – only there were six, not four, because Eddie was behind Richie and Stan was behind Bill, that little half-smile on his face.