Derry, Maine: A Town of Unspeakable Evil
Part 1 – Intro and History
In Stephen King’s world, evil lurks in the darkness, balanced with a sliver of good that prevents it from engulfing everything in its path. However, Derry is a different kind of town, a place where evil is so entrenched that most of the residents are not even aware of its presence. Derry looks like every typical American town with average citizens and a Norman Rockwell picturesque setting. It could be Anywhere, USA; but it is not!
Derry has a town square where the courthouse and surrounding shops compose the community’s center of activity and life. Popular local stores provide all the necessary commodities of life and the gossip that small American towns seem to use as fuel for life. Mr. Norbert Keene’s drugstore located near the square is the place where most residents of Derry fill their prescriptions and doctor their ailments. The Derry Public Library is close to the center of town and is an important setting in the events that occur in the little town.
Outside of the square, Derry has several famous landmarks that everyone in town knows, and some that they go out of their way to avoid. Kitchener Iron Works is part of the town’s history and an important business for Derry residents as well as Stephen King’s stories. On the outskirts of town is the infamous place known as “The Barrens,” which is where the runoff water from the town streets eventually flows. “The Standpipe” is located in Derry Memorial Park, which is “within a shout” of the Barrens, as described by Mike Hanlon in his unpublished book, Derry: An Unauthorized Town History (IT, page 149). Derry also has a tall statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Big Blue Ox, which are fictional characters from American folklore. One of the most recent landmarks in Derry is a statue dedicated to the memory of the “lost children” of the town (Dreamcatcher).
Derry has a tragic and dark history that is reflective upon the evil that lives in the small New England town. This history is the focus of Mike Hanlon’s book that is mentioned in the previous paragraph. Here are some of the events that Hanlon retells in his book:
1741 – The entire population of Derry township vanishes. Hanlon
compares it to the Roanoke Island, Virginia colony, where all of
the colonists disappeared in the early settlement of North America.
compares it to the Roanoke Island, Virginia colony, where all of
the colonists disappeared in the early settlement of North America.
1851 – John Markson kills his entire family with poison, then consumes a deadly “white nightshade” mushroom.
1879 – A crew of lumberjacks find the remains of another crew that spent the winter snowed in at a camp in the upper Kenduskeag, at the tip of the modern-day barrens. All nine had been hacked to pieces.
1906 – On Easter Sunday, the Kitchener Ironworks explodes during an Easter egg hunt, resulting in 102 deaths.
1930 – The Black Spot, a Negro social club, is burned to the ground by the Maine Legion of Decency. Dozens perish.
1958 – One hundred and twenty-seven children, ranging in age from three to nineteen, were reported missing in Derry.
1985 – Nine children are murdered; their killer is never apprehended. Also the year of the “Great Flood,” which results in millions of dollars of damage to the town.
1994 – Feminist Susan Day is killed when Derry resident Ed Deepneay – driven insane by an otherworldly being named Atropos – launches a kamikaze attack on the Derry Civic Center as Day addresses a capacity crowd.
(Source for above history – The Complete Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King, 101-102.)
Although one has to live in Derry to understand the darkness of the town, even visitors have a feeling that something is odd about it. Mike Hanlon states, “Those who have visited Derry refer to it as being ‘not right’” (IT, 151). Jake Epping aka George Amberson says that there is something “wrong” about the town. (11/22/63, 121). Even residents of nearby Haven report seeing and hearing strange things in the town as they travel through it (The Tommyknockers).
Derry has had a few famous residents that call the town “home.” Mort Rainey, author of two novels and a short story collection, resided in Derry with his wife until he went insane after his divorce (“Secret Window, Secret Garden”). William Denbrough, a best-selling author and screenwriter, is one of Derry’s most famous native sons (IT). Mike Noonan, another best-selling author, hailed from Derry and had a summer cabin near Dark Score Lake, which is near the town (Bag of Bones). Richie Tozier, a childhood friend of William Denbrough, left Derry and became an excellent deejay that was known as “the Man of a Thousand Voices” (IT, 63).
Interesting statistics about Derry (The Complete Stephen King Universe, 101):
· The murder rate in Derry is six times the murder rate of any other town of comparable size in New England.
· In Derry, children disappear unexplained and unfound at the rate of forty-to-sixty per a year.
Due to the importance of Derry in King’s work and the vast amount of information that is available about the town, the article about Derry will be divided into two parts; this entry being the first of those parts.
*Article note:
ReplyDelete1. The history of Derry is related to the reader in the book as described above, but the two-part film adaptation has the history being told by a young Mike Hanlon in class. This is a pivotal moment in the film as it opens a dialogue about Pennywise between the rest of the Loser's Club.
2. In the film adaptation, Richard Tozier is a comedian/actor, portrayed by comedic actor Harry Anderson. Richard is doing a comedy routine on 'The Tonight Show' when Mike Hanlon calls at the beginning of the film.
Stephen King has a love for music and relates the importance of the deejay in American culture during his youth (1950s and 1960s). King plays in a band and owns several radio stations. Music is often included in his stories. I plan on writing an article discussing the topic of music in King's work. I am still doing research for that article.