Christine

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This article is about the novel by Stephen King. For the film adaptation, see Christine (film). For other uses, see Christine (disambiguation).
Christine

First edition cover
Author Stephen King
Cover artist Gerry Grace
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Horror novel
Publisher Viking Press
Publication date 1983
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 503 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-670-22026-4
Preceded by Cujo
Followed by Pet Sematary

Christine is a horror novel by Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of a vintage automobile apparently possessed by supernatural forces.

In 1983, the movie version of Christine directed by John Carpenter, and starring Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, and Harry Dean Stanton was released to theaters.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The story revolves around teenage nerd Arnie Cunningham and his 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury, dubbed "Christine" by the previous owner. The story is set in Libertyville (supposedly a suburb of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania between the summer of 1978 and the spring of 1979. The novel is divided into three parts, the first and third of which are written in first person, from the point of view of Dennis Guilder, Arnie's best (and only) friend. The middle part of the book is written in the omniscient third person style (while Guilder is in the hospital, and thus removed from the action).

While driving home one evening from a summer job on a building site, Dennis Guilder and Arnie Cunningham drive past Christine, sitting on the dilapidated lawn of a small house on a suburban street. Arnie makes Dennis stop his car, and sets about examining the ancient Fury. Dennis initially thinks Arnie is joking with him, but soon realizes that he is deadly serious. The car's owner, an old man in a back brace called Roland D. LeBay, comes out onto the lawn, and offers the car to Arnie for $250. Unable to pay the full amount, he settles on a $25 deposit (in which Arnie has $9 borrowed from Dennis) and agrees to come back the next day with the rest of the money.

Arnie and Dennis return the following day, and LeBay invites Arnie into his house to sign over the car. While waiting for Arnie, Dennis decides to sit inside Christine, now parked in LeBay's garage, and as he does so, he has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they would be in 1957 when the car was brand new. Frightened, Dennis gets out of Christine, and decides there and then that he does not like Arnie's new car.

Arnie takes the car to Darnell's, a local do-it-yourself auto repair facility. As he restores the automobile, he becomes withdrawn, yet more confident and self-assured. He becomes humorless and cynical. Dennis is scared of these changes, and of Christine's changes. The car is repaired haphazardly (quote from the film: "Look how cock-eyed he works! He's got... brand new windshield wipers for a busted windshield."), and not all of the repairs seem to be done by Arnie. Also, Arnie's appearance (e.g. his normally poor complexion) improves in tandem with Christine's. When Roland LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who relates to him Roland's past destructive and violent behavior. He is also told that Roland's young daughter choked to death on a hamburger in the back of the car, and then his wife, traumatized by this death, apparently committed suicide in the car by carbon monoxide poisoning. Dennis's further investigations with others around town who had known Roland confirm to him that Arnie's new personality is in alignment with that of his car's former owner.

Arnie and Leigh go to a football game on their first date; Christine watches from the parking lot. Screenshot from John Carpenter movie.
Arnie and Leigh go to a football game on their first date; Christine watches from the parking lot. Screenshot from John Carpenter movie.

When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, Leigh Cabot transfers to his high school. Leigh is instantly popular and regarded as the most beautiful girl in school. It is a surprise to everyone when she decides to go out with Arnie. While on a date with Arnie, Leigh almost chokes to death on a hamburger. Leigh is certain that Christine was behind it after the car's doors locked to prevent Arnie or anybody else from saving her. Leigh is only saved from death by a hitchhiker that Arnie picked up, who pulls her from the car and administers the Heimlich Maneuver. Despite Arnie's protestations, Leigh continues to feel as though she is competing with Christine for Arnie's affection. "Cars are girls", she says.

Arnie brings Christine home from Darnell's, but his mother, who has hated the car from day one, tells him that he cannot park it at the house. A severe argument ensues and Arnie storms out of the house. Arnie's father, Michael, takes a drive with his son & treats him to a 30-day parking pass at the local airport, thinking Arnie will only use his car when absolutely necessary. Exiting Christine, Michael experiences a feeling of extreme dread.

Soon after Arnie begins parking at the airport Buddy Repperton, a vicious bully who Arnie and Dennis got expelled earlier in the story, visits Christine with his gang of thugs and severely vandalizes the car. Seeing Christine destroyed completely infuriates Arnie, resulting in the severance of his relationship with Leigh. Arnie dedicates all his free time to repair the car: Leigh grows closer to Dennis.

Mysterious murders occur in Libertyville. One by one, members of Buddy's gang are killed by Christine. Others who were hostile to Arnie or Christine also turn up dead. The police investigate the murders and become suspicious of Arnie. However, Arnie has an alibi for each of the murders, since the car apparently acts on its own.

Dennis and Leigh become suspicious not of Arnie, but of Christine. They try to find out as much as they can about the car and its previous owner. As their suspicions grow, they try to destroy the supernatural forces that appear to be in control of Christine and Arnie.

It is never quite clear as to whether Christine is evil or if it's Roland LeBay possessing her. On one hand it is clear that Roland's ghost is driving her during her climatic battle with Dennis and Leigh, and also during the climatic crash involving Buddy Repperton. But while Dennis is talking with Roland's brother, there are hints to Christine's past that indicate how the car's supernatural abilities came to be: both his wife and daughter died in the car, and it is strongly hinted that their deaths were, in truth, a sacrifice to obtain immortality for both Roland D. LeBay and the car itself. George LeBay also makes clear, in a later conversation with Dennis, that Roland himself was violent and destructive from his early childhood. Pertaining to this Christine can fix herself without human help after denting and scratching herself in the murders of the bullies.

The novel ends on an ambiguous note. Arnie's father is found dead in Christine, apparently from the exhaust fumes. Arnie and his mother die in an auto accident: witnesses to the accident saw three people in the car before the crash, but only two bodies were found. In the mean time, Dennis and Leigh manage to destroy Christine in Darnell's using a huge septic tank truck, named Petunia, and Dennis is informed by a police detective that the remains were fed into the crusher in the back of the garage by two police officers, adding that one received a bad cut that needed stitches, and said "it bit him". Dennis ends the story proper with a salutation to his friend:

"Rest in peace, Arnie.
I love you, man."

In the epilogue, set about four years later, Dennis reports that he and Leigh attended college together, consummated their relationship ("very satisfactorily"), but ultimately went their separate ways. Dennis is a teacher in New Jersey, Leigh a housewife in New Mexico. The last page details that, in Los Angeles, Sandy Galton (one of Buddy's gang, who let them into the parking garage to trash Christine) has died a mysterious death when an unknown car burst through the wall of the theater he was working at, instantly killing him; the final words of the book convey Dennis' horror as he contemplates the possibility of Christine having finally repaired herself and starting a campaign of revenge.

[edit] Precursors

The idea of an evil, living car was previously seen in the 1977 movie The Car. A The Twilight Zone episode about a car with a mind of its own driving itself was explored in You Drive, and, to a lesser extent, in A Thing About Machines. This episode may have been referenced within the book. A much earlier stageplay, The Wrecker, also featured a character who was convinced his vehicle was evil, although in this case, it was a Steam locomotive rather than a car.

The idea of an evil car has also been used in an episode of Futurama where Bender becomes a Werecar. In another episode of Futurama, an excerpt from Christine is read by Fry in a spoof of the Wizard of Oz. In a Simpsons comic Christine is parodied in the story 'KRUSTINE'.

[edit] Editions

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd., 329-330. 

[edit] External links