Yes, Christine Is Banned!

Stephen King’s Christine is about a 1958 Plymouth Fury that is alive, jealous, and murderous. Arnie Cunningham, a bullied, nerdy teenager, buys the rusted-out car and begins restoring it. As Christine returns to showroom condition, Arnie transforms too: from pushover to predator, increasingly isolated from his best friend Dennis and his girlfriend Leigh. The car is possessive. It doesn’t share. King published Christine in 1983 at the peak of his powers, and the novel works as both a horror story about a haunted car and a parable about the seductive, destructive nature of obsession. Arnie doesn’t just love Christine. He disappears into her.

Christine has been challenged 7 times in Florida and North Dakota, flagged for violence, sexual content, and profanity. Like most King novels targeted in recent years, Christine was pulled as part of blanket removals of his work from school library shelves. The violence involves a car that runs people down (it’s a horror novel about a killer car, so yes), and the profanity reflects how teenagers in 1978 actually talked. King is one of the most banned authors in America, and Christine’s inclusion on removal lists is less about the book’s specific content than about the ongoing campaign to strip school libraries of anything that acknowledges the darker corners of human experience.