Carrie

Carrie

by Stephen King

narrated by Sissy Spacek

Ⓟ 2005, Simon and Schuster/Audioworks (Retail) and Recorded Books (Library)

7.5 hours

The eponymous protagonist of Carrie is a teenage girl with some serious issues regarding her relationship with her mother and, bullying at school (LOL, How's that for understatement!) Carrie's mother is a religious zealot of the most extreme and fundamental kind: mentally debilitated and only able to find recourse in biblical literalism. This creates an isolated home culture in which Carrie is reared, untutored in the norms of societal living and, much less in the nuances of personal relationships. Sheltered and ignorant, Carrie is left at the mercy of her classmates and; throughout the years, she is subjected to peer cruelty and ostracism. The situation comes to a head when Carrie officially becomes a woman, unfortunately while she is showering at the high school gym. The incident sparks an ugly reaction of taunting and assault by her classmates and, Carrie starts to stress out. The home front provides no answers or succor to her problems, indeed the strain on Carrie increases as her mother inflates the religious fervor to insane dimensions. How Carrie deals with this situation, using her latent power, is the stuff of Stephen King's horror classic.

Sissy Spacek, who starred in the 1976 movie which was based on the novel, narrated the audiobook. Owing to her familiarity with the character, a now iconic figure in the horror film genre, she is an obvious choice to read the book; however, there are some issues that, while they could be transcended in the film, could not be overlooked in the audio production. Ms Spacek slides some words around lazily in her mouth so that a word like "menstruation" becomes"menstration." This brings to the listener's attention that we have more of the coal miners daughter than we do a New England native from Down East. There is also a minor production issue of booth noise, specifically page turns and shuffling which distracts from the story. Overall though, Sissy Spacek tells the story well and that is no small mean feat.

Other Stuff: I borrowed a library Cd edition of Carrie from the Jackson County Library System in Southern Oregon.

This post is part of the Murder, Monsters, Mayhem feature being hosted by Jennifer L. at www.jennsbookshelves.com

This book also qualifies for the Where Are You Reading? Challenge hosted by Sheila at her blog, Book Journey. Carrie takes place in Chamberlain, Maine.

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