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Customer Reviews of Carrie

A promising debut
Stephen King's first book, Carrie, is the story of Carrie White, a nerdy girl who has the power to move things with her mind. Living with her repressed mother, a religious fanatic who is almost comically over-the-top in her fear of sexuality (a theme that King would later treat with a more subtle hand in most of his later books). In the book's justifiably famous opening, 16 year-old Carrie starts her first menstural cycle while in the shower after gym class. The other girls in her class have a rather cruel, if all-too believable, reaction to Carrie's fright and this sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Carrie being invited to prom by the most popular (and apparently the only genuinely nice) boy in school, yet another terribly cruel practical joke being played on Carrie, and finally Carrie White's revenge. King's narrative alternates between telling Carrie's story and presenting "evidence" in the forms of excerpts from a survivor's memoir, articles in Esquire and Reader's Digest, a nicely off-center psychology textbook, and the reports of the government commission set up to cover up the implications of Carrie's final rampage. It all comes together in an effective but rather jagged mosiac that confirms that King had talent from the beginning but still makes for an uneven read. Indeed, King's trademark ability to create a cast of credible characters isn't extremely evident here with the key exception of the title character. Carrie White is, for all intents and purposes, a nerd and the pain that she feels and her conflicting responses of self-loathing with self-righteous, almost arrogant fury at how she is treated will be almost painfully familiar for anyone else who spent high school in that outcast social group (it certainly brought back a lot of not-quite cherished memories for myself). Its almost saddening to discover that King himself disliked Carrie and held her responsible for her misfortunes because his recreation of her pain is so spot on perfect that one finds it hard to wonder how her creator couldn't have felt badly for her. No, she isn't always sympathetic and her final, destructive vengeance is carried out with intentionally murderous intent but its hard not to understand how her hatred was generated at the hands of the often thoughtless cruelty of teenage culture. I don't know how someone who was popular in high school might react to the book but as a former high school nerd, I can say this brought back a lot of uncherished memories and Carrie's plight kept me enthralled despite the many times when the book felt rather uneven.

Though it might not matter much in the overall scheme of things, King also does a good job of making credible Tommy Ross, the jock wiseman who agrees to be seen at his school's prom with the school's most unpopular student, an action that sets forward the book's apocalyptic conclusion. Ross's noble choice in asking Carrie to the dance is not an entirely credible action and King, at times, is obviously trying to convince himself as much as the reader that this could actually realistically happen. However, in his few scenes, Tommy Ross is drawn as a sympathetic, believable character and is presented with such skill that one comes as close as possible to actually buying into the credibility of his actions. Though a relatively minor character, Tommy Ross is an early prototype for the plain-spoken, intelligent but unpretentious, defiantly blue collar characters who would make up the majority of King's future protaganists.

Back before he became THE Stephen King, Stephen King was a generally down-on-his-luck teacher living in obscurity in Maine and making a few extra bucks selling a few well-written horror stories to racy magazines (some of which, King has often recalled, ended up going out of business before getting around to publishing his fiction). Though it wasn't the first book he completed. It is a novel of a writer still searching for his voice and who is writing in a genre that he is not totally comfortable embracing. Indeed, while the novel can be labelled a work of horror, it still contains signs of the insecurities and pretensions of the not-yet succesful King with Carrie's story, at times, being forced rather roughly into a metaphor for the whole decline of society in general. However, this is all probably meaningless nitpicking because in the end, the only that matters is that Carrie -- whatever its flaws -- is still a gripping read that grabs the reader's attention for page one and shows signs of the talent that would later make Stephen King a brand name.

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a spectical of a novel!
'Carrie', Stephen King's first novel, is truly remarkable writing! Most authors don't have quite the stinging debut they hoped for, but this book deffinetly did, even today. The story is about a teenage girl named Carrie White who has a trumatic life, where home isn't safe, school isn't safe, and she isn't safe. She grows up with her psycho catholic mother who often locks her in the closet, and at school is constantly cutdown. cutdown doesn't even describe the humiliation and torture, the hell of carries life is the true horror in this story. So all of a sudden Carrie snaps, things start happening when she gets overwhelemed, and she starts gaining telekentic powers and hurting and killing anyone who stands in her way. I appreciated King's writing and description. He truly is a genius of his craft, and creates a realistic cast of characters. The story is really depressing, but if your like me, you enjoy reading the humiliation and torture, and keep reading in your morbid giddiness. This is my first Stephen King novel I have fully read, and I have never seen the movie, which makes the book much more fun. This is a classic.

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King's First Book, and One of His Best
Though "Carrie" is definitely the work of a writer who is still finding his voice, it is a remarkably tight and gripping book, and remains one of my personal favorites of King's work.

The tale told by King and King's wife Tabitha, about how she literally pulled the first pages of the book out of a trash can, read them, and then encouraged King to continue with the story he had started, is somewhat apocryphal now. Nevertheless, upon reading the first few chapters of "Carrie" one can see what grabbed her attention. The reader is immediately involved in the story and irresistably drawn all the way to the end.

The story of Carrie White is that of someone who is essentially ordinary (almost painfully so), but with an extraordinary ability. How these two elements come together is the substance of the book, and there is a lot of substance here, both in terms of storytelling and thematic material. King's talent for strong character and capturing the feel of everyday life is already obvious in this book, and it is put to good use.

"Carrie" remains one of King's most compelling works, even 30 years after it was written. Thank goodness Mrs. King had the wherewithal to get him to finish it!