**
In a 1981 interview, [Stephen] King discussed the real-life inspiration for Carrie as
"...a very peculiar girl who came from a very peculiar family. Her mother wasn't a religious nut like the mother in "Carrie;" she was a game nut, a sweepstakes nut who subscribed to magazines for people who entered contests. And she won things -- weird things. She won a year's supply of Bebop pencils. But the big thing she won was Jack Benny's old Maxwell. They had it out in the front of the yard for years, with weeds growing up around it. They didn't know what to do with it."
The girl eventually married. "She had three kids and then hung herself one summer," King remembered. The religious fanaticism of Carrie's mother, in other words, had its origins in a more secular American obsession: the strike-it-rich fantasy of rescue and transformation, of magical entitlement.
**
Thought that was kind of interesting. It might be common knowledge to you true afficionados, but it was certainly news to me. It would be a bit cooler, though, if the Maxwell had been the inspiration for King's "Christine" -- I dunno, maybe Jack's spirit could cause the car to run down anyone who tried to spend money.
