Carrie
By: Stephen King / Narrated By: Sissy Spacek
Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
Seen the movie? Read the book? ForGET all that, and listen to this!
I have to admit that, tho’ my parents let us watch Rosemary’s Baby, it wasn’t until I was much older, like, in my freaking teeeeens, that I had a chance to see Carrie. I mean, I read the danged thing before I saw it, and while I thought the movie was jolly decent, I liked the book so much better.
Well, forGET all that cuz the audiobook totally rocks. Sissy Spacek, you are sublime! As a narrator, she manages all author Stephen King’s tricks and devices, going from fraught teen-angst to scholarly article, to news report then wheeling back to the main character, Carrie, the hyper bullied teen-aged girl with a psycho Christian fundamentalist mom. Oh! And telekinetic powers too!
I think I’ve mentioned that I sometimes live under a rock and miss things. But have you missed out too? Can it be so?
Here’s the nitty-gritty: The story opens with a daydreaming Carrie thinking she’s absolutely DYING because all of a sudden, blood has begun to flow from between her legs. She’s never ever heard what a menstrual cycle is, and all the girls in the P.E. locker room chant at her, shout, shriek, throw tampons at her. Because Carrie is an outcast and is made to be bullied and preyed upon. Turns out that telekinetic powers, while present early on, a recessive gene of some sort, don’t really reach a fever-pitch until puberty hits.
And Carrie starts wondering if she’s had enough… She starts working with this itty bitty power she has, lifting things up, moooooving things around. All with the power of her mind.
Sue Snell, another girl in her P.E. class, was one of the girls who chanted at her that day and begins wondering if maybe, just maybe, she’s not a toad for joining in on humiliating Carrie. She and her boyfriend Tommy decide to do something nice for Carrie, to introduce her kindly into the social network of high school: Tommy won’t take Sue to the prom; he’ll take Carrie instead.
Meanwhile, high school bad girl, Christine, has other and more malevolent plans. A pig is slaughtered, a couple pails o’ pig’s blood are filled, and Prom Night has never looked sooooo….?
Surely we’ve all gone to our proms thinking, Yeah, I’ll get there and a bucket of pig’s blood is gonna fall on my head (Or maybe that was just me?). But really? Are we ready for this?
Though this is early King, the man did do his share of grunt work writing in the trenches before penning this. And the writing benefits from it all. And though the horrors of Prom Night are told right at the beginning, with the story following in a gradual unfolding, there’s still a heavy-duty amount of suspense going on. Considering this is such a well known classic, I think that’s pretty astounding and a sign of a pretty amazing talent. I can’t say that I’m much of a fan of King’s more current works, I thought Sleeping Beauties was rather a dud after I had a chance to think about it a tad, I gotta tell ya: His earlier works are pretty much to die for. The man brought us The Shining, The Dead Zone, and The freakin’ Stand for cripes sake!
But with Sissy Spacek at the helm of this, Carrie is in a class all its own. I’m so very glad King, tho’ in the process of drinking himself to an early grave, did not indeed swill himself to death. And kudos to wife Tabitha for fishing it out of the trash and making him go for broke.
Didn't have a chance to get to The Shining for this Halloween, but after listening to Carrie, next Halloween never looked more enticing. Strong and well-crafted story paired with phenomenal narration?
Holy cow, you’d better believe I’m THERE!!
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