FrightFall part one: Carrie then and now

 Well, I just finished the first half of my FrightFall challenge(hope everyone else who signed up for the Seasons of Reading event are also enjoying some great scary reads)and since my duet of reading this year is a change from my norm, I’m dividing up my recaps of the books on this TBR as well.

With the release of the new Carrie eight part adaptation online, my completion of the original novel along with one that follows in it’s fearsome footsteps is rather timely to say the least. While I do have some thoughts about that version of Stephen King’s debut classic (and no, I haven’t watched it due to Prime not being in my entertainment budget these days), my focus is on the books first.

Carrie was not my first King novel-that honor belongs to Christine-but I was familiar with the 1976 movie before tackling the book, which is short yet striking in it’s cruel clarity about high school and human nature.

In some ways, King was ahead of his time by using mixed media (interviews, excerpts from newspaper articles, etc)as the omnipresent narrator of this tale of Carrie White, an outsider who was pushed too far by all around her and sadly, released a fury that consumed them all.

At the heart of this book is Carrie herself; a sad, scared girl who wanted to escape the traps that society and her mother had set out for her to stumble into. When she receives that fateful invitation to the prom from Tommy Ross, her first reaction is to suspect trickery at work, a totally realistic reaction. 

With only the encouragement of Miss Desjardin at the beginning, Carrie allows herself to hope that things can get better for her future and you can see that if someone had reached out to Carrie a little sooner in life, the path of prom destruction she was unknowingly on might’ve been avoided:

Unfortunately, we also witness the dark influence of her mother Margaret whose power of manipulation may be waning over her emotionally captive daughter but her violent fears of the world still have impact on Carrie.

For some reason, people think it’s hard to sympathize with Carrie but her first strike towards independence both at home and in the wider world is quite compelling; by taking charge of her own power in more ways than one, she’s a solid example of feminine determination for a little while there:

Sadly, that spark is snuffed out on Prom Night but Carrie doesn’t go out with a whimper (at least not at the dance), instead she channels that rage into something tragically devastating yet slightly satisfying at the same time.

This isn’t an endorsement of what happened that night, just the reality that this book spoke to many young women (and a few older ones) about how underestimated their positions in life are, whether you’re the target of bullies or like Sue Snell, who unintentionally set the gruesome  prom prank into motion, on the path towards a conventional life that you’re dreading to tread. 

Sure, the book is a little rough around the edges( it was a first try that King originally tossed away until his wife Tabitha fished out of the trash and encouraged him to finish) but it still has a hard and fast grip on the reality of high school horror.

As I said earlier, Tiffany D. Jackson’s The Weight of Blood 

came to my attention online as talk of the upcoming Carrie adaptation grew stronger.

When over the summer, my local library was doing a giveaway of YA titles, this book was among them and I took that as a sign that I was meant to read this inspired by Carrie contemporary story and I’m so glad that I listened and did so.

Set in a remote town in Georgia during the year 2014, Maddy Washington has the local teen pariah for a long time and due to a sudden rainstorm, she’s more exposed to ridicule than ever before.

Maddy is biracial, something that her bigoted father Thomas has gone out of his and her way to conceal and part of that includes using a hot comb to straighten Maddy’s hair. Once it gets wet that fateful day, open mockery ensues in the classroom and so does Maddy’s telekinetic powers.

Things get even harder for her as social media brings some of the bullying incidents and casual racism to light, resulting in trying to put out a better image of the town by holding an inclusive prom; segregated proms have been the norm(and not just in the book, it’s a real life thing that still happens in certain parts of our country) but one particular student, Wendy, wants to better her chances at following her athletic boyfriend Kenny to college by make this happen.

Kenny is asked by Wendy to take Maddy to prom and he reluctantly agrees yet by getting to know Maddy better, sees that they have a lot in common. Both of them are under pressure from without and within to fit into certain roles that their families have arranged for them(Kenny, a football star career, Maddy, a perfect stay-at-homemaker) and both want to break free of those boundaries.

Maddy’s dilemma is more compounded by the fact that her powers are very real and finding out that her religious zealot of a father has lied to her about what did happen to her mother and how the world really works. 

Also, she has had no one to talk to or guide her in life until one of her teachers and later Kenny gets to know her.

Maddy’s only true knowledge of the outside world comes from the old movies and ‘50s TV shows that Thomas watches nonstop (no internet , cell phone or cable TV allowed in their house). While those pop culture blasts from the past do give her something to look forward beyond her limited sphere, Maddy also knows about the darker side of such sunny looking images as well:

However, upon connecting with Kenny, Maddy decides to go to the All Together Prom in defiance of Thomas’ wishes and starts to widen her social circle. Unfortunately, one of Wendy’s best friends, Jules, has lost out on her big college dreams due to her nasty bigotry being showcased online and plots a humiliating revenge that changes the course of everyone’s lives rather decisively.

To say more would spoil things but I must say that this book expands on the terror template created by Carrie in more ways than one. Unlike the King original, TWOB is the author’s eighth novel and the characters have much more depth  and nuance given to them and stronger emotional connections are made between major and minor characters alike.

Maddy and Kenny become a couple that you immediately root for(his relationship with Wendy is on a downward spiral at best) and when the terrible twist on the prom incident occurs, the outrage and pain is palatable on the page. When Maddy does unleash her wrath, it’s incredibly potent and takes the damage that Carrie White did up to 11! Jackson not only honors her inspiration, she exceeds it by leaps and bounds.

This is a book that shows you can update prior works with good creative choices and heartfelt writing. For example , much like the original King novel, Jackson uses mixed media(particularly a true crime type of podcast) to bolster the story and it not only displays the modernity of that approach but also how true to life that option was.

In the end, The Weight of Blood is frighteningly beautiful and sadly tragic much like the book that came before it. All that Maddy wanted was one magical night on the dance floor and she had it, but oh so briefly…:

Of course, the reason that I reread the King book and read the Jackson novel for the first time was the Mike Flanagan helmed eight part adaptation of Carrie that debuted online recently.

While I haven’t seen it, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t think that I will bother to watch it at all sometime in the future. Based upon the spoilers that I have read (and will only generally allude to here) and the few clips that I did look at, this isn’t the version of Carrie for me.

Mike Flanagan has stated that he’s planning to make Carrie a three season series and intends to start up a Stephen King cinematic universe of sorts here (an adaptation of the Dark Tower books is in the works as well). That may be why the creative choices that were made during this show and particularly the final episode went the way that they did and to me, that’s not what Carrie is all about.

Trying to dilute the agency of the lead character in order to make them more “likable “ to the audience is rather insulting to their collective intelligence. One of the core elements of the main character is harnessing her own power, emotionally and psychically, and by taking away her ability to freely choose her destiny, rightly or wrongly, is another attempt to restrain her spirit. 

Granted, I didn’t see the show but I have seen Mike Flanagan’s work before (Doctor Sleep was very well done) and I have no doubt that all involved gave excellent performances. This just sounds to me like someone wanted to make this simply told story more elaborate than it needs to be.

That’s a shame, in my opinion, because the one universal theme that ties the King novel and Jackson’s new take on it is the homegrown horror that is bullying. It’s an experience that many of us can relate to in more ways than one and while social media does ratchet that up to even more toxic levels, it’s a persistent poison that is never completely cured.

This updated Carrie could have done much with that concept across the generational lines but seems to have preferred to use this sad tragedy as a stepping stone towards a more action packed epic instead. Too bad, I think a simpler approach might’ve worked to highlight the humanity within this iconic horror heroine in a stronger spotlight:

Anyway, I am on the second set of FrightFall picks, which are very Brides of Dracula in rather different ways.

Kiersten White’s Lucy Undying has the unfortunate Miss Westerna seeking a new existence in modern times while Dracula, My Love by Syria James has a tumultuous relationship for Mina Harker with the legendary Count. The former is a new read and the latter a revisit, which makes for a bloody good time indeed, I hope!

I will share my thoughts on both of those after the FrightFall readathon is officially over and I wish you all a wickedly good read this Halloween season (goodness knows a fictional fear fest that you can easily close the cover on is most welcome these days!):