Boys And Their Cars

“Christine” is a novel from the world’s best known horror writer, Stephen King, which was first published in 1983.

A teen-ager becomes obsessed with a 1958 Plymouth Fury that starts off as quite the heap until Arnie Cunningham starts putting some work into it.

There are times where the story seems to drag just a bit, however it’s a pretty entertaining read.  King really delves into some complicated family dynamics at times that seem familiar in many ways but are still presented in a fresh manner.  Although the freshness may be due to most families not having to contend with a demonic car.

Roland D. LeBay is the owner who sales Christine to Arnie and is pretty foul from the beginning.  My problem with LeBay that he was just more disgusting than actually frightening even after his wretched spirit lingers around after his funeral.

The narrator through much of the story, Dennis Gilder, is fine. The middle section of the book is told in third person after Dennis ends up being hospitalized.  The girl at the center of the triangle, Leigh Cabot, seemed like a regular teen-aged girl even if she was depicted to be the gold standard of high school beauty queens.

I have said for years that King excels at describing how someone can slowly unravel at first before plummeting into utter madness. He does have a pretty unique style of prose.

If horror fans, particularly Stephen King readers, have somehow missed this one, I  do recommend that be rectified. It’s still worth the time in spite of some of my more critical observations.

Next up, William Monk is back patrolling the Thames of Victorian England in Anne Perry’s “An Echo of Murder”