Christine

If you want to prove that you're an incredible author then you need to take an unbelievably stupid concept, something totally retarded, and turn it into a story worth reading.

Stephen King's novel, Christine, a story about an evil, killer ghost car that's running people over; is exactly what I'm talking about.

That's the brilliance of it: take an idea so ridiculous that if it actually happened to you, nobody would ever believe you.

Possessed car running over people you know? Who are you going to tell? Even the most open-minded dude on the planet is going to laugh in your face, so the entire novel has this sense of isolation for our protagonist. It's him versus something that even he doesn't believe in. The absurdity of the situation feels more like a nightmare than a joke.

Best of all, underneath the horror story, Christine is a bromance. Arnie and Dennis, the two main characters could have carried this book without the supernatural car, and I would have read it front to back and loved it. The starting chapters are some of my favorites:

In the dim glow of the moon and a nearby streetlight, his face looked ravaged and haglike. He was like a stranger to me then. He was off walking in whatever cold places of the universe a fun-loving God reserves for people like him. I didn't know him. I didn't want to know him. I could only sit there helplessly and hope that the Arnie I did know would come back. After a while, he did.  - SK