Last summer I won an auction for a Doctor Sleep inscribed to King's highschool friends Caroline and Leon from his graduating class of 66. That package would come with an Easter egg of sorts that would lead me to purchasing Caroline's actual yearbook inscribed twice by an 18yr old SK. In school Caroline was known by "Carrie", and it is her belief that she inspired the title of his first work. Her prom dress was vandalized by a jealous classmate, which may have also loosely inspired the climax of the novel.
There are also clues that King used these years to inspire future works, such as classmate "Roland Desjardins". Despite the obvious similarity to our Roland Deschain, Desjardin was the name used for the coach in Carrie, and later used for a character in Gwendy's Button box. There are other mentions that suggest other inspirations, including that of Lady Abigail from the Stand. The inscription to Caroline in the back of the book one of the earliest I've ever seen, and touching to say the least. This has never been owned by another collector, and Im happy to be able to share with you all. It also came with a copy of a "Batman" script that king wrote for a school play. But it won't let me post additional pictures.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk