#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz, and the Name of Our Winner!

/ Marcia Meara

Submissions for #FirstLineFriday are officially closed now. My thanks to all who emailed me with their guesses. Today, we have one winner: Harmony Kent.  Congratulations, Harmony, and I hope you enjoy your prize.

Harmony’s Author Page can be found HERE. 

And now, here’s the answer to today’s quiz:

“Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.” is the opening line of the epistolary novel, Carrie, by American author Stephen King.

 It was King’s first published novel, released on April 5, 1974, with a first print run of 30,000 copies. Set primarily in the future year of 1979, it revolves around the eponymous Carrie White, an unpopular friendless misfit and bullied high school girl from an abusive religious household who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who torment her.

During the process, she causes one of the worst local disasters the town has ever had. King has commented that he finds the work to be “raw” and “with a surprising power to hurt and horrify.” Much of the book uses newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters, and excerpts from books to tell how Carrie destroyed the fictional town of Chamberlain, Maine while exacting revenge on her sadistic classmates and her own mother, Margaret.

Several adaptations of Carrie have been released, including a 1976 feature film, a 1988 Broadway musical as well as a 2012 off-Broadway revival, a 1999 feature film sequel, a 2002 television film, a 2013 feature film, and a 2018 television special episode of Riverdale. The book is dedicated to King’s wife Tabitha King: “This is for Tabby, who got me into it – and then bailed me out of it.”

WHAT AMAZON SAYS:

Stephen King’s legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates.

Carrie White may be picked on by her classmates, but she has a gift. She can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. This is her power and her problem. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offers Carrie a chance to be normal…until an unexpected cruelty turns her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that no one will ever forget.

Buy Carrie HERE

I think this particular line proves once again that while great opening lines can pull us into a story, it’s the tale, itself, that sticks with us in the long run.

And that wraps it up for this week, folks. Hoped you enjoyed playing along! Thanks so much for taking part, and stay tuned for another #FirstLineFriday quiz in two  weeks. See you then!

 

 

 

29 thoughts on “#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz, and the Name of Our Winner!”

  9. Huge, huge thanks, Marcia, for this bit of Friday fun and showing us another great first line. Had I not re-read Carrie recently, I wouldn’t have remembered this line. It would have just been familiar but tantalisingly out of reach, lols 😁

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • You are very welcome, Harmony. I really love taking a look at these lines and seeing which ones (if any) have stuck in readers’ minds. And I think “familiar but tantalizingly out of reach” turned out to be the theme for the day, only spelled with a “z” of course, as it is over here, and as auto-correct insists on. 😀 😀 😀

      I’m really glad you’d refreshed your memory and knew this one right off the bat. It’s always more fun to have winners, even if that’s not the main focus of the series. Hope you’ll enjoy your prize!! Workin’ on it! 😀 ❤

      And most of all, thanks for playing! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

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