Set in the town of Chamberlain, Maine, the plot revolves around Carrie White, a friendless, bullied high school girl from an abusive religious household who discovers she has telekinetic powers.

Though King initially gave up on Carrie due to discomfort and apathy, and felt it would never be successful, his wife Tabitha convinced him to continue writing, and rescued the first three pages of the story from the trash.

King based the character of Carrie on two girls he knew in high school and enjoyed fabricating the documents for the narrative.

After Doubleday accepted Carrie to be published, King worked with editor Bill Thompson to revise the novel.

In 1979, Carietta "Carrie" White, a 16-year-old girl in Chamberlain, Maine, is ridiculed for her weight, frumpy appearance and unusual religious beliefs instilled by her despotic mother Margaret.

While Carrie panics, her classmates, led by a wealthy, popular girl named Chris Hargensen, mock her and throw tampons and sanitary napkins.

The next day, Desjardin reprimands the girls who bullied Carrie and gives them a week's detention; Chris refuses to comply and is punished with suspension and exclusion from the prom.

Meanwhile, Chris persuades her boyfriend Billy Nolan and his gang of greasers to gather two buckets of pig blood as she prepares to rig the prom queen election in Carrie's favor.

Using her powers, she seals the gym, and activates the sprinkler system, inadvertently electrocuting many of her classmates, and causing a fire that eventually ignites the school's fuel tanks, destroying the building in a massive explosion.

Carrie, overwhelmed by rage, thwarts any incoming effort to fight the fire by opening the hydrants within the school's vicinity, then destroys gas stations and cuts power lines on her way home.

As the novel ends, an Appalachian woman enthusiastically writes a letter to her sister about her baby daughter's telekinetic powers and reminisces about their grandmother, who had similar abilities.

[4] Leigh A. Ehlers, a literary scholar, has argued that this structure is used to indicate that no particular viewpoint, scientific or otherwise, can explain Carrie and the prom night event.

[9] John Kerrigan, a literary scholar, and Victoria Madden have observed that throughout the novel, Carrie is often associated with pigs, which are considered "disgusting" animals.

[12] Ray B. Browne argues that the novel serves as a "revenge fantasy",[13] while novelist Charles L. Grant has stated that "[Stephen] King uses the evil/victim device for terror".

[17] By the time of writing Carrie, King lived in a trailer in Hermon, Maine with his wife Tabitha and two children.

The next day, Tabitha retrieved the pages from the trash and convinced King to continue writing the story with input from her.

He wrote in fabricated documents that were purported to be from periodicals such as Esquire and Reader's Digest, imitating their style accordingly; a process that King found entertaining.

After Carrie was accepted by the publisher Doubleday, King revised the novel with editor and friend Bill Thompson.

[34] Thompson convinced Doubleday to boost the advance to $2,500, moderately high for a debut novel at the time,[35] and it was announced to King via telegram.

Tanner sent a copy to the parent company, New American Library, which then offered Doubleday $400,000 for rights to mass-market paperback publication of Carrie,[38] of which King received $200,000.

The original cover of the paperback edition did not feature the title or the author's name; it consisted of the face of a girl in front of a silhouette.

New American Library planned for the girl's silhouette to be scored to allow the reader to see the burning New England picture.

[53] Bob Cormier from the Daily Sentinel & Leominster Enterprise wrote that the novel could have failed because of the subject matter, but did not, and thus found King to be "no ordinary writer".

[54] Various critics wrote that the plot will scare readers,[55][56][57] with Library Journal declaring the novel "a terrifying treat for both horror and parapsychology fans".

[58] Mary Schedl of The San Francisco Examiner wrote that Carrie "goes far beyond the usual limitations of the [horror] genre" to deliver a message about humanity.

[60] Both Joy Antos of Progress Bulletin and Gary Bogart of Wilson Library Journal wrote of enjoying Carrie despite the foregone conclusion.

[68] Although Harold Bloom found the characterization and style to be unremarkable, he thought the novel had strong imagery and said that "Carrie at the prom scene ... is a marvelous culmination of melodrama.

[71] Both Carrie and its 1976 film adaptation brought King into the mainstream,[74][75] and he has since become one of the most successful authors in the modern era,[65] with his novels consistently becoming best sellers.

For decades prior to the 1970s, horror literature had not been in the mainstream; the last novel to reach the Publishers Weekly best-seller list was Rebecca (1938).

[87] The television series Riverdale aired an episode titled "Chapter Thirty-One: A Night to Remember" in 2018 based on the musical.