This article is about the novel. For the film see, Christine (film).
Christine is the 16th book published by Stephen King; it was his 13th novel, and the ninth novel under his own name. The book was released by Viking on 29 April 1983.
The story is set in Libertyville, Pennsylvania, and tells the story of a 1958 Plymouth Fury possessed by an evil spirit.
Plot[]
While driving home from work, Dennis Guilder and Arnie Cunningham drive past Christine, a dilapidated 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury. Arnie makes Dennis stop his car, and examines the car. The car's owner, Roland D. LeBay, an elderly gentleman in a truss, comes out onto the lawn, and offers the car to Arnie for $250. Unable to pay the full amount, he settles on a $25 deposit and agrees to return the next day with the balance. When Arnie returns home that night and tells his parents, Regina and Michael, that he used his own money to buy the car, Regina becomes instantly furious, acting as though Arnie isn't responsible enough to own a car, much less restore it. Dennis finds Regina's reaction offputting since they raised Arnie to be a well-rounded, open-minded person, who is more mature than most teenagers his age. Regina goes so far as to attempt to shift some of the responsibility to Dennis for not looking out for Arnie.
Arnie and Dennis return the following day, and LeBay invites Arnie into his house to sign the paperwork. While waiting for Arnie, Dennis decides to sit inside Christine, and as he does, he has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they were in 1957 when the car was new. Frightened, Dennis gets out of Christine, and decides that he does not like Arnie's new car.
Arnie brings Christine to Darnell's, a local do-it-yourself auto repair facility. Despite running afoul of the garage's owner, the cantankerous, cigar-chomping Will Darnell, Arnie restores the automobile, works part-time for Darnell, stripping car parts in the auto graveyard out back, and becomes withdrawn, yet more confident and self-assured. He becomes humorless and cynical. Dennis is at first very concerned about these changes in his friend, and of Christine's changes. Dennis later grows more frightened of the car. The car is repaired haphazardly, and not all of the repairs seem to be done by Arnie. No one has ever witnessed him performing more than minor repairs and routine maintenance on the car. Also, Arnie's appearance improves in tandem with Christine's. However, as he continues with the restoration job, Arnie is harassed by another of Darnell's customers, Buddy Repperton, who never misses a chance to torment Arnie. In one incident, Repperton casually breaks one of Christine's headlights with a jack handle, prompting Arnie to start a fist fight. Arnie quite surprisingly holds his own despite taking a beating but when the fight seems to turn in Arnie's favor, Will Darnell breaks it up, seemingly taking Buddy's side. Buddy is kicked out of Darnell's garage and vows revenge. He later catches up with Arnie at school, ready to use a switchblade on him. The fight is broken up before it can turn serious and a smallish teacher, Mr Casey, manhandles Buddy into admitting he was carrying the knife. Buddy is summarily expelled.
When Roland LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who relates to him Roland's persistent anger and past violent behavior. He is also told that Roland's young daughter choked to death on a hamburger in the back of the car, and then Roland's wife, traumatized by this death, apparently committed suicide in the car by carbon monoxide poisoning. Dennis's further investigations with others around town who had known Roland confirm to him that Arnie's new personality is becoming like that of his car's former owner.
When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, Leigh Cabot transfers to his school. Leigh is instantly popular and regarded as the most beautiful girl in school. It is a surprise to everyone when she decides to go out with Arnie. While on a date with Arnie, Leigh almost chokes to death on a hamburger. Leigh is certain that Christine was behind it, and when Arnie attempts to save her by hitting her on the back, she notices that the dashboard lights on Christine seem to have turned into glaring green eyes. Leigh is saved from death by a an amiable and pleasant hitchhiker, who pulls her from the car and administers the Heimlich Maneuver. Despite Arnie's protestations, Leigh continues to feel as though she is competing with Christine for Arnie's affection.
Arnie brings Christine home from Darnell's when she is finally restored, roadworthy and registered, but his mother, Regina, who hates the car, tells him that he cannot park it at the house. Increasingly, Regina sees the car as yet another factor in her son's transition to adulthood and she is afraid of losing him. She and Arnie have a heated argument where Regina backs up her side by pointing out that Arnie has spent a large amount of his college fund money on the restoration and that his grades have slipped. Arnie counters, informing her that the owner of Darnell's, Will, has given Arnie paying work and that he's on track to restoring the money he'd spent. Arnie also argues that despite the small slip in his grades, he's still in the A-grade percentile. Arnie offers his mother a deal where if his grades slip below a B for any class, he'll sell Christine to Darnell. Regina flatly refuses and the argument ends with her slapping her son and Arnie storming out of the house.
Arnie's father, Michael, takes a drive with his son and treats him to a 30-day parking pass at the local airport, thinking Arnie will only use his car when absolutely necessary. Arnie is resistant but Michael becomes firm and stern with him, telling him that though he expected Arnie would one day assert his independence, that his behavior has at time become too belligerent, even for a rebellious teenager. Michael notices a few suspicious things about Christine; her odometer runs backward and that just sitting in the car makes him uneasy. Soon after Arnie begins parking at the airport, Buddy visits the lot with his gang of thugs and severely vandalizes Christine, gaining entry from a friend of theirs, Sandy Galton. Seeing Christine destroyed completely infuriates Arnie, resulting in the severance of his relationship with Leigh.
Just before Thanksgiving, Dennis, a star wide receiver on his high school football team, takes a bad hit just after catching a pass: he is hit simultaneously by three defensive players at the same time and blacks out, waking up in the hospital with two broken legs, his doctor also telling him he came very close to being paralyzed from the waist down. Dennis spends the holiday and five weeks in the hospital recovering and doing physical therapy, but he'll never play football again. Arnie visits him on Thanksgiving, past visiting hours and treats him to feast of turkey sandwiches and apple pie. He also sneaks in a six pack of beer. The visit goes very well since Arnie hadn't visited Dennis for several weeks and Arnie brought him food that was considerably better than what Dennis was served by the hospital. When the topic turns to Christine's destruction at the hands of Buddy and his crew, Arnie tells Dennis that the damage wasn't that bad. Dennis suspects that Arnie is lying. He asks Arnie to sign one of his leg casts, the one Arnie hadn't signed at a previous visit. When he compares the signatures, they are markedly different. A later investigation reveals that Arnie is now signing his name in the same style as Roland Lebay.
Mysterious murders occur in Libertyville. One by one, members of Buddy's gang are killed by Christine. The first is Moochie Welch who is run down while returning from a rock concert. Buddy Repperton himself is terrorized by Christine while returning from a Libertyville High basketball game in his Camaro with two friends. Christine repeatedly bumps the rear of Buddy's car, chasing them into a nearby state park. Buddy crashes, his car is demolished, his friends are killed and he's found by the ghost of a rotting Roland LeBay, whom frightens Buddy to death.
Others who were hostile to Arnie or Christine also die, including Will Darnell, whom dies of a heart attack when Christine bursts through the front of his house. The police, led by a detective named Junkins, investigate the murders and become suspicious of Arnie. However, Arnie has an airtight alibi for each of the murders, since the car apparently acts on its own. Although the police find paint chips at the crime scenes that match Christine's color, they find no damage, bloodstains, or other evidence on the car, since Christine supernaturally repairs herself after each attack.
Dennis and Leigh become suspicious not of Arnie, but of Christine. They try to find out as much as they can about the car and its previous owner. As their suspicions grow, they try to destroy the supernatural forces that appear to be in control of Christine and Arnie.
Arnie's employment by Will Darnell ends up having dire consequences for Arnie. It's revealed that Darnell also has a criminal sideline, smuggling cocaine and cigarettes between Libertyville and Albany NY. Arnie uses Darnell's Cadillac for these drug and smoke runs because it has a hidden compartment under the spare tire in the trunk. When Arnie makes what becomes his last run, he's stopped just over the New York state border and taken to Albany on an interstate rap when the stash is found. While in custody, Arnie refuses to give up Darnell. Arnie and Dennis decide to spend New Year's Eve together, watching TV and drinking beer. Dennis notices that Arnie's personality has changed so drastically in the space of only a few months that he hardly resembles himself anymore and acts more like an angry old man, whom Dennis assumes is Lebay. When Arnie drives Dennis home that night in Christine, Dennis remarks that the ride is the most terrifying of his life, that he can feel Christine's utter hatred for Arnie's friends by just sitting in her.
The novel ends on an ambiguous note. Arnie's father is found dead in Christine, apparently from exhaust fumes. Arnie and his mother die in an auto accident: witnesses to the accident saw three people in the car before the crash, but only two bodies were found. In the meantime, Dennis and Leigh manage to destroy Christine in Darnell's using a huge, pink-colored septic tanker truck named Petunia, and Dennis is informed by a police detective that the remains were fed into the crusher in the back of the garage by two police officers, adding that one received a bad cut that needed stitches, and said "it bit him". Dennis ends the story proper with a salutation to his friend: In the epilogue, set about four years later, Dennis reports that he and Leigh attended college together, consummated their relationship ("very satisfactorily"), but ultimately went their separate ways. Dennis is a teacher in New Jersey, Leigh a housewife in New Mexico. The last page details that, in Los Angeles, Sandy Galton has died a mysterious death when a car burst through the wall of the theater where he was working, instantly killing him. The final words of the book convey Dennis' horror as he contemplates the possibility that Christine repaired herself and pursued him, and now may be working her way east, targeting Leigh and LeBay's brother and sister, saving Dennis for last.
Adaptation[]
The story was adapted into a film in 1983. In June 2021 it was announced a Remake film adaptation of Christine is in development.
Audiobook[]
The audiobook version of Christine was read by Holter Graham, who played the part of Deke Keller in Maximum Overdrive.