Stephen King's Cujo, a review

I believe that, whenever he pens his last novel and his complete literary corpus can be properly appraised, Stephen King will go down as more than just a shock horror author with popular appeal.

King does nasty shocks well—see “Survivor Type” for the ultimate example—but there is more going on in most of his stories than mere horror and spectacle. And a lot more authorial skill. King understands what makes people tick, both internally and in interpersonal relationships, and makes people come alive on the printed page. 

While he may lack the grand ideas of an H.P. Lovecraft or the atmosphere and style of an Edgar Allan Poe, King is a superior character writer.  We understand his universe of fear, even at its wildest, and we feel the same emotions as his characters, because we recognize ourselves in them.

Sandwiched between The Dead Zone (1979) and Firestarter (1980), The Running Man (1982) and The Gunslinger (1982)—stories of protagonists with supernatural mind powers, some set in far-flung futures or postapocalyptic other worlds—Cujo (1981) is in comparison earthly and corporeal, with only traces of the supernatural creeping in at the edges.

The story is set in Castle Rock, King’s finely-wrought fictitious small town in Maine that is home to all manner of horror. But Cujo is not just small-town horror, it’s small-time horror. A story of a rabid dog, and the damage human weakness can wreak on a family.

Horrors sneak up on us when we least expect them. When everything looks fine, and settled, and placid, boredom sets in. We seek novelty, excitement. The opportunity presents itself, and we take it.

Innocence is shattered.

We can try to trace back the reasons why, but often it’s just ill luck.

Or it seems to be.

A married woman, bored and looking ahead at a prosaic and unfulfilling life as a housewife, falls for a transient tennis instructor in a chance meeting.

A massive Saint Bernard sticks its snout into a hole connected to an underground cave and disturbs a bat, and suffers a bite on its snout. Says King, “He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.” Interestingly however Cujo seems to become more than just thoughtless animal inflicted with disease; his eyes are red and full of rage, possessed of something like malice, a murderous intent.

These (random?) events set in motion four days of terror and a relentless finish to the novel. On a placid, hot week in August it all comes to a head as Cujo begins a murderous rampage, dripping foam and blood. A car mechanic and a cop fall victim to his deadly jaws.

Cujo is a fine, tightly plotted little novel and packs some genuine scares, many of them lurking in the closet of four-year-old Tad Trenton. These scenes reminded me of King’s “The Boogeyman,” for my money one of his most terrifying short stories. I recall being terrified of the dark as a kid, and seeing strange shadows move in the light cast by my feeble nightlight, and shivering under the covers. I felt them again here.

I enjoyed the return of Frank Dodd, a serial killer/sexual predator cop who is identified by Johnny Smith, the clairvoyant protagonist of The Dead Zone. Dodd commits suicide before he can be brought to justice, and his ghost continues to haunt Castle Rock in the pages of Cujo. This adds a bit of interesting inter-novel world building to the book.

Tad has premonitions of Cujo/Dodd in the shapes in the recesses of his closet, but he also senses there is something wrong within his seemingly idyllic family. Tad’s father, Vic, pens his son “Monster Words” to keep away the bad dreams and reads them to his son nightly in a totemic ritual.

But words aren’t enough to keep away the real monsters.

Donna and Tad are trapped in a Pinto in the blazing August heat as Cujo waits them out (good thing the 200-pound dog didn’t ram the rear-end of the car, else it would have exploded). Donna she watches her son slowly slip into convulsions from dehydration. Eventually it comes down to it—she must emerge from the confines of the car to wage a hopeless battle against her deepest fear.

Donna’s final showdown with Cujo in a dusty driveway armed with a taped and splintered bat approaches the showdown of Eowyn and the Witch King on the fields of Pelennor. I love this bit of epic description by King; “high wine and deep iron” was unexpected:

Donna cried out in a high, breaking voice and brought the bat down on Cujo’s hindquarters. Something else broke. She heard it. The dog bellowed and tried to scramble away but she was on it again, swinging, pounding, screaming. Her head was high wine and deep iron. The world danced. She was the harpies, the Weird Sisters, she was all vengeance—not for herself, but for what had been done to her boy.

What has been done to her boy… is it Cujo or her own domestic horror come home to roost?