From Carrie: The Black Dawn of T. K. (Esquire magazine, September 12, 1980) by Jack Gaver:

Estelle Horan has lived in the neat San Diego suburb of Parrish for twelve years, and outwardly she is typical Ms. California:

She wears bright print shifts and smoked amber sunglasses; her hair is black-streaked blonde; she drives a neat maroon Volkswagen Formula Vee with a smile decal on the gas cap and a green-flag ecology sticker on the back window. Her husband is an executive at the Parrish branch of the Bank of America; her son and daughter are certified members of the Southern California Sun 'n Fun Crowd, burnished-brown beach creatures. There is a hibachi in the small, beautifully kept back yard, and the door chimes play a tinkly phrase from the refrain of “Hey, Jude.”

But Ms. Horan still carries the thin, difficult soil of New

England somewhere inside her, and when she talks of Carrie

White her face takes on an odd, pinched look that is more like

Lovecraft out of Arkham than Keronac out of Southern Cal.

“Of course she was strange,” Estelle Horan tells me, lighting a second Virginia Slim a moment after stubbing out her first. “The whole family was strange. Ralph was a construction worker, and people on the street said he carried a Bible and a. 38 revolver to work with him every day. The Bible was for his coffee break and lunch. The. 38 was in case he met Antichrist on the job. I can remember the Bible myself. The revolver… who knows? He was a big olive-skinned man with his hair always shaved into a flattop crew cut. He always looked mean. And you didn't meet his eyes, not ever. They were so intense they actually seemed to glow. When you saw him coming you crossed the street and you never stuck out your tongue at his back, not ever. That's how spooky he was.”