Christine is a horror novel by Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of a vintage automobile apparently possessed by supernatural forces.

In 1983, the movie version of Christine directed by John Carpenter, and starring Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, and Harry Dean Stanton was released to theaters.

Plot summary

The story revolves around teenage nerd Arnie Cunningham and his 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury, dubbed "Christine" by the previous owner. The story is set in Libertyville (supposedly a suburb of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania between the summer of 1978 and the spring of 1979. The novel is divided into three parts, the first and third of which are written in first person, from the point of view of Dennis Guilder, Arnie's best (and only) friend. The middle part of the book is written in the omniscient third person style (while Guilder is in the hospital, and thus removed from the action).

While driving home one evening from a summer job on a building site, Dennis Guilder and Arnie Cunningham drive past Christine, sitting on the dilapidated lawn of a small house on a suburban street. Arnie makes Dennis stop his car, and sets about examining the ancient Fury. Dennis initially thinks Arnie is joking with him, but soon realizes that he is deadly serious. The car's owner, Roland D. LeBay, an elderly gentleman in a back support, 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 (in which Arnie has $9 borrowed from Dennis) and agrees to come back the next day with the rest of the money.

Arnie and Dennis return the following day, and LeBay invites Arnie into his house to sign over the car. While waiting for Arnie, Dennis decides to sit inside Christine, now parked in LeBay's garage, and as he does so, he has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they would be in 1957 when the car was brand new. Frightened, Dennis gets out of Christine, and decides then and there that he does not like Arnie's new car.

Arnie takes the car to Darnell's, a local do-it-yourself auto repair facility. As he restores the automobile, he becomes withdrawn, yet more confident and self-assured. He becomes humorless and cynical. Dennis is scared of these changes, and of Christine's changes. The car is repaired haphazardly (quote from the film: "Look how cock-eyed he works! He's got... brand new windshield wipers for a busted windshield."), and not all of the repairs seem to be done by Arnie. Also, Arnie's appearance (e.g. his normally poor complexion) improves in tandem with Christine's. When Roland LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who relates to him Roland's past destructive and 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 his 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 in alignment with that of his car's former owner.