Carrie White is a teenage girl in a small Maine town, living with her religious fanatic mother. Carrie is shy, is heavily bullied, and treated as an outcast at school. She is mocked incessantly by her classmates and isolated by her mother’s extreme beliefs. Unknown to those around her, Carrie possesses telekinetic powers — the ability to move objects with her mind — which manifest and grow stronger as she enters adolescence. The powers come out particularly during moments of emotional distress or humiliation.
When the popular students at the school play a cruel prank on Carrie at prom, the situation becomes a catalyst for tragedy. After being publicly humiliated in front of the entire school, Carrie’s suppressed rage and her telekinetic abilities explode in a devastating display of supernatural power. She destroys the gymnasium, kills many of her classmates and teachers, and causes a massive fire that spreads throughout the town, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people.
She heads home and has a tense encounter with her mother, which results in her mother’s death and Carrie being mortally wounded. Much later the event, labelled the “Black Prom”, is national news, and has caused the deaths of over 400 people in the town, including almost the entire high-school senior student body.
The book, at the core, is horror, incorporating both supernatural and gothic themes. The key theme of the book is the psychologically destructive nature of alienation, bullying and religious extremism. Carrie, though having caused all the carnage, is portrayed as a sympathetic figure, a product of her environment in an intolerable situation. The book is presented as a combination of narrative, followed by newspaper clippings and interview transcripts. A short and excellent read. It is hard to believe this is written by a debutant novelist.