Carrie At 40

As astonishing as it might sound, Saturday 5th April marked the 40th anniversary of Stephen King's debut novel "Carrie" being published.  NSFWG member Mark West, a longtime fan of the writer, was approached by the review site readerdad.co.uk to take part in their Carrie At 40 celebrations.

You can read his article and review on this link.

As a kid of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I grew up with Stephen King and was aware of him – and a certain book – before I really knew who he was or what he did. During the ‘70s, my Dad was a fan of paperback horror and he had a small bookcase in his and my Mum’s bedroom. Sometimes – not often – I’d go in and look at the spines on the shelves, daring myself to look at the gloriously gruesome images that adorned the covers. One book that killed me was The Fog by James Herbert – the hand holding the woman’s head – but the cover that got me every time I looked at it (and it still has the power to unsettle, since my own 8-year-old son doesn’t like it either) was the New English Library edition of “Carrie”. I have the 1986 ‘sixteenth impression’ so mine has “author of Christine and Pet Sematary” on it but otherwise the image is the same – a well painted portrait of a young woman with wide, staring eyes, a snub nose and a small mouth, opened slightly to show her incisors. Blood seems to run from her hairline, making trails down her face to drip off her chin. I was too young to appreciate it properly, too young to read it but that image succeeded in scaring the crap out of me.

...read on at this link