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| Cujo | |
 First edition cover |
|
| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publisher | Viking |
| Publication date | October 1981 |
| Media type | print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 0451161351 |
| Preceded by | Firestarter |
| Followed by | Christine |
Cujo (1981) is a psychological horror novel by Stephen King. It was made into a film of the same name in 1983.
The story focuses on the Trenton family: Vic, an advert designer, his adulterous wife Donna, and their four-year-old son Tad. The latter two are terrorized by the eponymous Cujo, a rabid St. Bernard dog. The narrative takes place in the author's recurrent fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, and is interspersed with vignettes from the seemingly mundane lives of other residents. There are no official chapters, but rather breaks in between passages, which indicate when the author is alternating to a different point of view.
Cujo also references King's previous novel, The Dead Zone, on several occasions. For instance, serial killer Frank Dodd has now achieved a kind of bogeyman status in Castle Rock.[1]
Cujo's name was based on the nom de guerre of Willie Wolfe, one of the men responsible for orchestrating Patty Hearst's kidnap and indoctrination into the Symbionese Liberation Army.[2] [3]
Stephen King mentions Cujo in On Writing, referring to it as a novel he "barely remembers writing at all". The book was written during a period when King was drinking heavily. Somewhat wistfully, King goes on to say that he likes the book and that he wishes he could remember enjoying the good parts as he put them down on the page.[4]
Plot
The story is set almost entirely in the fictitious town of Castle Rock, Maine. The action centers on Cujo, a St. Bernard that belongs to Joe Camber and his family. While Camber is somewhat fond of Cujo, he never bothers to get the dog vaccinated against rabies.
The omniscient narrator recaps the story of Frank Dodd, the Castle Rock deputy sheriff whose murder spree was the central episode in the first half of The Dead Zone. There are some hints in the story that Cujo might be possessed by Dodd and that Dodd is haunting the Trenton house. Cujo's heightened intelligence might be one of the (if not the only) evidences of Dodd possessing Cujo (as rabid animals can't think properly). Except for these vague hints, and a closet which opens itself despite being latched and blocked with a chair, there are no supernatural elements in the book.
While chasing a rabbit in the fields around the Cambers' house, Cujo gets his head temporarily stuck in a rabbit hole and is bitten by a bat which is resident therein and infected with rabies. As Cujo begins to succumb to the disease, Joe's wife and son, Charity and Brett, leave on a trip to visit Charity's sister, Holly, in Connecticut. Soon afterwards, Cujo attacks and kills the Cambers' neighbor, Gary Pervier, a World War II hero who has become a misanthropic alcoholic. Joe goes to the Pervier home to check on Gary because they were going to Boston, only to find him dead. Before Joe is able to summon help, Cujo kills him as well.
The Trentons – Vic, Donna, and four-year-old Tad – are having problems of their own. Vic has discovered that his wife has been cheating on him with an itinerant furniture restorer and poet. In the midst of this household tension, Vic's fledgling advertising agency is failing, and he is forced to leave on a business trip to Boston and New York. Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to the Cambers' for repairs. However, the car breaks down when they reach the farm. With no one at the Camber home except for Cujo, a three day struggle begins to outlast the dog in a siege of the stalled car.
Hunger, thirst, and fantasies of escape methods conspire to tease Donna and Tad during the hottest summer in Castle Rock history. During one escape attempt, Donna is bitten in the stomach and leg. The Castle Rock sheriff, George Bannerman, arrives fortuitously but is immediately killed by the dog before calling for help.
Vic, worried that his wife has not answered the phone at home, returns to Castle Rock and, having learned that Bannerman isn't responding to the radio, heads out to the Cambers' residence. Donna eventually kills Cujo with a baseball bat but is too late to save Tad from dying of heatstroke. The Trentons are able to move on after Tad dies but not without great difficulty. In the movie, Tad lives after his mother gives him CPR.
References
- ^ "IMDb search: quotes containing "cujo"". http://www.imdb.com/Find?select=Quotes&for=cujo. Retrieved on 2008-12-23.
- ^ March 1, 1976. Patty's Long Ordeal on the Stand [1] Time.com
- ^ August 14, 1981. Cujo: New York Times Book Review [2] New York Times.com
- ^ King, Stephen. On Writing, page 110, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, ISBN 978-0-340-82046-9
Further reading
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