Notes From the Book Review Archives

Victor LaValle reviews Stephen King’s latest novel, “The Outsider,” in this week’s issue. In 1974, the Book Review’s Crime columnist, Newgate Callendar, praised King’s first novel, “Carrie.” Read an excerpt below.

Maybe, strictly speaking, it is not a mystery book. But it does have action, suspense and, at the end, a holocaust. And it is exceedingly well-written. So don’t miss “Carrie,” by Stephen King, a first novel and one guaranteed to give you a chill.

“Carrie” is about a telekinetic girl in a small town in Maine. She is an unhappy girl. Her mother is a horror, a religious fanatic eager to beat the goodness of Christ into sinners with a powerful right hand. No wonder Carrie grows up all but mute, unattractive, shy. She is the butt of jokes in school; she is poorly coordinated; she does nor appear to be very bright. But she has strange gifts. Finally, pushed beyond what her emotional state can absorb, she runs psychically amok, unleashing all the latent powers in her. The result is sheer disaster for her and for all around her.

King does more than tell a story. He is a schoolteacher himself and he gets into Carrie’s mind as well as into the minds of her classmates. He also knows a thing or two about symbolism — blood symbolism especially. That this is a first novel is amazing. King writes with the kind of surety normally associated only with veteran writers. This mixture of science fiction, the occult, secondary school sociology, kids good and bad and genetics turns out to be an extraordinary mixture.