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Scene: A middle class suburb of Pittsburgh. Time: 1978 Cast of characters: Arnie Cunninghm, a bookish and bullied high school senior. Dennis Guilder: His friend and sometime protector. Leigh Cabot, the new girl in school won by Arnie...but wanted by Dennis as well. Just another lover's triangle, you say? Not quite. There's a fourth here, the second lady, the dark lady. " Cars are girls" Leigh Cabot says and the dark force in Stephen Kings novel is a 1958 Plymouth named - Christine.
This is a car story with the element of horror thrown in for good measure as only Stephen King seems to do. Two guys and two girls, but one of the girls happens to be a 1958 Plymouth which turns out to be an evil thing all by itself. I have driven cars that I thought were evil in a mechanical sense. I have also driven cars that I have designed and built which were the essence of sweetness. They did exactly what I designed them to do and then some. With these things in mind, Christine is ALMOST believable. If you are a car guy or girl you will undoubtedly find this book entertaining as a somewhat off-beat car story.
I was leery of this book, having seen the movie years ago and remembered it as pretty corny...come on, a killer car? I should have trusted King's talent. It is not about a killer car so much as the bitter and hateful spirit of a man having a hold on the car and its subsequent owner from beyond the grave. The characters were good and very well developed. I like the way it was told: first person from Dennis's viewpoint except for the middle section where he's in the hospital and it shifts to third person, but it becomes clear that Dennis is still the narrator of this section. The epilogue was a little weak and unnecessary, but I still thought the book as a whole was excellent.