Carrie

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Why read Carrie? Stephen King himself has said that he finds his early work "raw," and Brian De Palma's movie was so successful that we feel like we have read the novel even if we never have. The simple answer is that this is a very scary story, one that works as well--if not better--on the page as on the screen. Carrie White, menaced by bullies at school and her religious nut of a mother at home, gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers, powers that will eventually be turned on her tormentors. King has a way of getting under the skin of his readers by creating an utterly believable world that throbs with menace before finally exploding. He builds the tension in this early work by piecing together extracts from newspaper reports, journals, and scientific papers, as well as more traditional first- and third-person narrative in order to reveal what lurks beneath the surface of Chamberlain, Maine.

News item from the Westover (ME) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966: "Rain of Stones Reported: It was reliably reported by several persons that a rain of stones fell from a clear blue sky on Carlin Street in the town of Chamberlain on August 17th."

Although the supernatural pyrotechnics are handled with King's customary aplomb, it is the carefully drawn portrait of the little horrors of small towns, high schools, and adolescent sexuality that give this novel its power, and assures its place in the King canon. --Simon Leake


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Review
Chicago Tribune Gory and horrifying...you can't put it down.

New York Times Guaranteed to chill you.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Since the publication of Carrie in 1974, neither misfit Carrie White nor her catastrophic high school prom has been forgotten. That's because the story of Carrie, her extraordinary telekinetic powers, and her violent rampage of revenge introduced a fresh and distinctive new voice in American fiction -- Stephen King.

Although Carrie first captured America's attention with its shocking climax, it remains as vibrant today as when it was first published because of Stephen King's ability to tap the collective unconscious of our commercial society. He brilliantly underscores the inherent fears and driving forces that fester in adolescence and later manifest themselves in various forms. Whether it's public high school's proclivity for suppressing individualism and creativity, the bigotry of cliques, or male apprehension of women's emerging sexuality and equality, Carrie lays bare our ritualistic, cruel, and base tendencies. Ultimately, we discern that it's not Carrie White but the ineffectual people surrounding her that we truly dread -- which is why Carrie endures as one of Stephen King's most riveting and disturbing novels.

SYNOPSIS

In one way or another, everybody abused Carrie. This sixteen-year-old misfit was forbidden everything that was young and fun by her fanatical mother. She was teased and taunted by her classmates, misunderstood by her teachers, and given up as hopeless by almost everyone.