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Christine (King novel)

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Christine
First edition cover
AuthorStephen King
Cover artistCraig DeCamps
LanguageEnglish
GenreHorror
PublisherViking
Publication date
April 29, 1983
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages526
ISBN978-0-670-22026-7

Christine is a horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of a car (a 1958 Plymouth Fury) apparently possessed by malevolent supernatural forces. In April 2013, PS Publishing released Christine in a limited 30th Anniversary Edition.[1]

King has said that he got the inspiration for the story one night while driving when he saw the numbers on his car's odometer go from 9999.9 to 10,000, which led him to think of the idea of an odometer that ran backwards, thus making the car "younger" instead of older.[2]

Synopsis

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Set in the fictional Pittsburgh suburb of Libertyville, Pennsylvania in 1978, nerdy teen Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham and his friend, Dennis Guilder, notice a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury while driving. The car is being sold by Roland D. LeBay, a grouchy old man with a back supporter. Despite Dennis's reservations, Arnie buys Christine, as LeBay has named the vehicle, for $250 (equivalent to $765 in 2023). While Arnie finishes the paperwork, Dennis sits inside Christine and has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they existed when the car was new, 20 years earlier. Frightened, Dennis decides he dislikes Christine.

Arnie brings Christine to a do-it-yourself garage run by Will Darnell, who is suspected of using the garage as a front for illicit operations. As Arnie restores the car, he stops wearing his eyeglasses and his acne disappears, but he also becomes withdrawn, humorless and cynical. When LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who reveals LeBay's history of anger and violence. He also reveals that LeBay's young daughter choked to death on a hamburger in Christine's back seat and that his wife subsequently committed suicide in its front seat by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dennis observes that Arnie is taking on many of LeBay's personality traits and has begun dressing like a 1950s greaser. He also sees that Arnie has become close to Darnell, acting as a courier in Darnell's smuggling operations. When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, he begins dating an attractive student named Leigh Cabot. His parents force him to keep Christine in an airport parking lot. Soon afterward, Clarence "Buddy" Repperton, a bully who blames Arnie for his expulsion from school, learns where Christine is being kept and vandalizes the car with help from his gang.

Arnie, aware of Christine's ability to repair herself, pushes her through Darnell's garage until enough of the damage is undone for her to run, then drives her through the junkyard until she is fully restored. He strains his back in the process and begins wearing a back brace as LeBay did. During a date with Arnie, Leigh nearly chokes to death on a hamburger and is saved only by the intervention of a hitchhiker. Leigh notices that Christine's dashboard lights seemed to become glaring green eyes, watching her during the incident, and that Arnie only half-heartedly tried to save her. Believing she and Christine are competing for Arnie's affection, Leigh vows to never get into the car again.

Several inexplicable car-related deaths occur around town. The victims include Darnell, Buddy and all but one of his accomplices in the vandalism. The police link Christine to each of the murders, but no evidence is found on the car. Rudy Junkins, a police detective, becomes suspicious of Arnie despite his airtight alibis. Christine, possessed by LeBay's vengeful spirit, is committing these murders independently and then repairing herself.

Leigh and Dennis begin a relationship while unearthing details of Christine and LeBay's past. Dennis speculates that LeBay sacrificed his daughter and wife to make Christine a receptacle for his spirit. They compare Arnie's signatures from before and after his purchase of Christine with LeBay's. Arnie stumbles upon Leigh and Dennis being intimate in Dennis' car, sending him into a rage. Soon after, Junkins is killed in a car crash. Suspecting they are next, Dennis and Leigh devise a plan to destroy the car and save Arnie.

While Arnie is visiting a college, Dennis and Leigh lure Christine to the garage and batter her to pieces using a bright pink septic tanker truck nicknamed Petunia. Dennis witnesses LeBay's spirit attempting to make him stop before the wreckage is crushed. Dennis learns that Arnie and his mother were both killed in a highway accident, while Christine had earlier killed Arnie's father. Witness accounts lead Dennis to believe that LeBay's spirit, tied to Arnie through Christine, fled the car and attempted to repossess Arnie, but Arnie fought him to a draw, resulting in the wreck.

Four years later, Dennis and Leigh have ended their relationship. He reads about a car accident in Los Angeles, in which a drive-in theater employee—the last surviving member of Buddy's gang—was killed by a car that smashed through a cinderblock wall. Dennis speculates that Christine may have rebuilt herself and is setting out to kill everyone who stood against her, saving him for last.

Reception and adaptations

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Christine has received the Locus Award Nominee for Best Fantasy Novel (1984).[3] The American Library Association named Christine the 95th most banned and challenged book in the United States between 1990 and 1999.[4] Eight months after the release of the novel, a film adaptation was also released in December, directed by John Carpenter. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $21 million at the box office. The film has since become a cult classic.[5]

While he was promoting the film adaptation of Dreamcatcher in 2003, Stephen King mentioned Christine as one of two film adaptations of his work that had "bored" him, stating: "I may just be the most adapted novelist in modern times... and I don't say that with pride so much as with a kind of stunned bemusement. Several honorable adaptations have come from this thirty-year spew of celluloid... and the best of those have had few of the elements I'm best known for: science fiction, fantasy, the supernatural, and pure gross-out moments... The books that do have those elements have, by and large, become films that are either forgettable or outright embarrassing. Others—I'm thinking chiefly of Christine and Stanley Kubrick's take on The Shining—should have been good but just... well, they just aren't. They're actually sort of boring. Speaking for myself, I'd rather have bad than boring."[6] In June 2021, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Blumhouse Productions announced the development of a remake of the film with Bryan Fuller set to write and direct the film and Jason Blum, Vincenzo Natali and Steve Hoban producing.[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Christine 30th Anniversary Edition by Stephen King". Archived from the original on 2013-02-11. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
  2. ^ "Christine". Stephenking.com. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
  3. ^ "Christine". Goodreads. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
  4. ^ "100 most frequently challenged books: 1990-1999". Office of Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association. 2013-03-26. Archived from the original on 2020-10-10. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
  5. ^ Suckley, Jamie (July 31, 2013). "Christine". Static Mass Emporium. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
  6. ^ Goldman, William (2003). Dreamcatcher: The Shooting Script. Newmarket Press. ISBN 1557045666.
  7. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (June 8, 2021). "Stephen King's 'Christine' Getting Overhauled; Bryan Fuller Directing for Sony Pictures & Blumhouse". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
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