Stephen King Weighs in on Recent Carolina Clown Sightings
“Take a little kid to the circus and show him a clown, he’s more apt to scream with fear than laugh.”
Police have begun investigating sightings of clowns in Carolina, where figures donning costumes and masks have been reported in a purported “harlequin triangle” in the Greenville, Greensboro, Winston-Salem section of the Tarheel State. Author Stephen King certainly contributed to the popular conception of clowns as psychotic and capable of evil with his 1986 horror novel It, which tells the story of a supernatural clown being who murders children. “When I wrote my novel It, I set it in Bangor, because it’s a town with a tough and violent history. I chose Pennywise the Clown as the face which the monster originally shows the kiddies because kids love clowns, but they also fear them; clowns with their white faces and red lips are so different and so grotesque compared to ‘normal’ people” said King. “The clown furor will pass, as these things do, but it will come back, because under the right circumstances, clowns really can be terrifying.” No arrests have been made as of yet.
