When it was released in 1974, the book was an instant success and catapulted King into the top ranks of horror writers.
King's fiction features colloquial language, clinical attention to physical detail and emotional states, realistic settings, and an emphasis on contemporary problems, including marital infidelity and peer group acceptance, that lend credibility to the supernatural elements in his fiction. King's wide popularity attests to his ability to create stories in which he emphasizes the inability to rationalize certain facets of evil in seemingly commonplace situations.
King's interest in the demonic and the paranormal is usually reflected in his protagonists, whose experiences and thoughts serve to reveal psychological complexities and abnormalities. Carrie concerns a socially outcast teenage girl whose emotional insecurities lead her to take violent revenge on taunting classmates by means of telekinetic powers. In The Shining, malevolent spirits in a remote resort hotel manipulate a recovering alcoholic caretaker into attempting to murder his wife and child. Similarly, a haunted car in Christine gains control of an alienated teenage boy. Other works in which paranormal events recur include The Dead Zone and Firestarter.
Some of King's novels offer variations on classic stories of fantasy and horror.
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