Stephen King Fans discussion

I have a lot of unanswered questions after my many times reading It. A lot. Every time I read it, a new one seems to pop up.

Here's #1: What made Mike abandon the family farm? The book makes clear that he loves the place as a child; his father, whom he adores, works to instill a love of the farm in Mike just as he works to instill a love of history (specifically, Derry's) in him; he receives an additional 1% ownership stake each year on his birthday.

Then we jump to Mike as an adult, living in a small house in town. In one fleeting reference, he mentions "the old home place." That's it. And I'm like, WTF, man? Did his father's death make his mother so sad that she couldn't bear it, or what?

I often get the feeling, reading It, that some important stuff got chopped in revisions just to make the length workable. I mean, it's right there at the edge, especially in '86-'87. Maybe SK knew/knows the answer but never bothered to write it. Maybe he did write it, and it got cut,

This is the place to speculate. I'd like to get some opinions outside the echo chamber of my own head! :)

And, hey—if you happen to drop by, SK, do this Constant Reader a solid and answer these questions that have nagging me for years. . . . .

Matt wrote: "I have a lot of unanswered questions after my many times reading It. A lot. Every time I read it, a new one seems to pop up.

Here's #1: What made Mike abandon the family farm? The bo..."


Mike's parents bought the farm with a ten-year mortgage in 1945. Will died of intestinal cancer in 1962, so they probably owned the farm free and clear. Although, it's possible there may have been some refinancing, and they had to sell to cover.

I think a person can have fond memories of the home they grew up in without wanting to live there forever. When Will died, Mike was in high school then went to college, so that would leave his mother running the farm, which she may not have wanted to do.

Michael: It's a good theory. I've speculated along those lines.

We don't know a lot about Jessica Hanlon, other than that she's devoted to Will and a hellfire-and-brimstone Baptist. It's not clear whether she loves the farm or simply loves her family. It's equally plausible, given the little we know about her, that she sold the farm and moved back South or that she stayed, determined to preserve what Will loved. (Though I don't see her leaving Mike in Maine until he's done with college and establishing himself in the world.)

All the same, when I read the book, I feel like this gap (farm-Mike to city-Mike) is a missing piece of the story. Obviously, there is a lot we don't know about how things changed in the Losers lives during the gap between the two timelines, but with the others, I don't feel that anything is unanswered—just that those changes weren't germane to the story. With Mike, I feel like it is, or should be, germane. Maybe I feel this way because he stayed in Derry, or maybe because of his narratives in the Interludes . . . but to me, it feels like a slightly uneven seam, as if SK addressed it and later cut the passage(s), or meant to address it and then considered that the book was long enough already.

We seem to get a bit more detail on the other Losers--where they moved, relationships they've built, and so on. We get some history with Mike, but not as much. But not much was going on in his life. All Losers who left Derry were extremely successful, while Mike led the more ordinary life of the everyday worker. So maybe we don't need as much history (because there isn't as much to give).

But, since you mentioned it, I would like to see more on Jessica Hanlon. She seemed to have dropped out of the picture after she and Will moved to Derry before Mike was even born. Knowing some more about her could have provided the answers on what happened to the homestead.

It could have something to do with characters' relationships with IT. Will part of Company E at The Black Spot, and he kept a scrapbook of strange happenings. Jessica had no [known] relationship with IT.