“And then the world exploded.”
Carrie was the
first novel that Stephen King had published, but not the first that he had
written. He had already written and had published a number of short stories, he
had written Rage,
TheLong Walk and The Running Man, and he had even made a start on the Dark Tower.
As any
Stephen King fan will no doubt know, Stephen King’s Carrie nearly didn’t happen
at all. The book started life as a short story for Cavalier Magazine, but King
became frustrated with the story and threw the first few pages of the
manuscript away. Stephen King says one of the problems that he had with Carrie
was that he was unable to relate to the problems of a teenage girl.
His wife
Tabitha retrieved the manuscript from the garbage and encouraged Stephen King
not only to finish it, but to turn it into a full length novel. Stephen King has said that the only reason he
carried on with Carrie was because he had no other new ideas at the time.
When Carrie
was published, Stephen King was living in a trailer with his wife. He was
working as an English teacher Hampden Academy and only just making ends meet. King
received an initial advance for Carrie of $2,500. A few months later, New
American Library bought the paperback rights for $400,000 and the paperback
went on to sell more than 1 million copies in the first year.
Stephen
King’s first published novel is about a Carrie White, who is a bit of a misfit
at high school and has a domineering, ultra-religious mother. She is also a
girl who is slowly developing telekinetic powers.
Carrie was
tormented relentlessly at school and she was always the awkward girl at games
and the one who never got the punch line of a joke. She became the laughing
stock of the school and, although she often couldn’t understand why she was
being picked on, it always hurt her deeply.
Thing’s
aren’t a lot better for Carrie at home. Her mother tells her that pretty much
everything is a sin. Her mother even thinks that a girl having period is a sin,
so she tells Carrie nothing about it at all, and that leads to one of Carries
most awful moments at school.
Carrie has
her own private game that she plays. If she concentrates hard enough, she can
make things move. She bottled up her power, though, because her mother told her
that her power was a sin too.
Everything
comes to a head at the school prom. Sue Snell, one of the girls who had so viciously
taunted Carrie in the locker room about her first period, convinces her
boyfriend Tommy to ask Carrie to the prom.
It all goes
well to begin with and Carrie even begins to dare to believe that she might
have the best night of her life. Some of her classmates, however, have hatched
a plan that will be the cruellest trick played on Carrie yet.
Carrie is
finally pushed over the edge and she uses her telekinesis to exact her deadly
revenge on her school mates and on the town she lives in.
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