Published in 1973, Stephen King's Carrie is an epistolary horror novel that takes the form of collected newspaper clippings, letters and diary entries to tell the tale of how bullied misfit Carrie White uses her telekinetic powers to avenge her bullying. This results in the decimation of the town of Chamberlain, Maine. The book was immediately controversial, largely because of its epistolary format, which made it seem far more real than it would have otherwise done had the story been told by a third person narrator. King's novel was banned in high schools and remains one of the most banned books in history to this day.
The book was the fourth novel that King had ever written but was the first to be published. It was actually intended to be a short story for Cavalier magazine, but he never dreamed it would be published; suffering a writer's block shortly into the composition, he finished the manuscript with the help of his wife's prompting, and believed he had written one of the worst books of all time. Still working as an English teacher at Hampden Academy, and struggling to make ends meet, he found the $2,500 advance for the book life-changing. He was able to quit his job all together and become a full-time writer after Carrie sold one million copies the year after its initial publication.
King intended Carrie to be an allegory of feminism that portrayed women's source of strength to be their sexuality, and men's fear of women to largely stem from the power that sexuality held over them. He viewed it as a coming-of-age story for Carrie White, who was finding for the first time what she was capable of. He based Carrie herself on a young girl he had noticed acting in a rather peculiar way. She was clearly an outsider who was made fun of whatever she said, wore or did.
In 1976, the book was adapted for the big screen by Lawrence D. Cohen. It was directed by Brian de Palma and starred Sissy Spacek in the title role. Both Spacek, and co-star Piper Laurie received Academy Award nominations for their performances, and the film is highly regarded within the horror genre. The Royal Shakespeare Company adapted the book for the stage in 1988, and it was revived in 2012 as an off-Broadway musical, garnering surprisingly positive reviews.
