Dog-Eared Reads: Stephen King’s “Cujo”

Stephen King delivers another strong, thoughtful work in 1982’s “Cujo.”

One of Stephen King’s most well-known works is his 1982 novel Cujo, about a rabid St. Bernard. While I enjoy some of his works, this was one I hadn’t had the chance to read yet.

It’s not really about a rabid St Bernard. It’s more about the precarious and mysterious ways marriages stay balanced. It just has a very sick dog in the middle of everything.

If you want to know what happens but don’t feel like reading it yourself (or don’t have time to, if you’re a student), continue reading. Or, you could watch the 1983 movie adaptation.

The storyline

The novel mainly contrasts two families in Castle Rock, Maine in the summer of 1980: the Trentons – Vic, Donna and Tad – who live in town, and the Cambers – Joe, Charity and Brett – who live way out in the country.

Vic works in advertising, and his company is getting pelted with the fallout of a cereal mishap that could ruin his advertising agency. Donna has just broken off an affair, and four-year-old Tad is dealing with the monsters lurking in his closet every night.

Joe works as a mechanic and he’s an abusive alcoholic. Charity has lost hope for ever getting out of her white-trash existence, and ten-year-old Brett is slowly realizing there’s more to the world than just the disreputable area of Castle Rock. Brett’s only friend, really, is his St Bernard Cujo, who’s been around since he was five.

The Trentons’ sky-blue Ford Pinto is breaking down, and Donna has to take it to the Cambers’ after Vic forgets before an important business trip.

Charity, meanwhile, has just won the lottery, and tricked Joe into letting her and Brett visit extended family in Connecticut. Joe plans to go on a trip of his own with his neighbor/drinking buddy Gary, who is an even worse person, if possible.

Cujo – who is a very good dog – was bitten by a bat infected with rabies earlier in the summer while chasing a rabbit, and it begins to show just as Charity and Brett leave. Not feeling well, he mauls Gary to death, and later Joe when he comes to Gary’s to check on him.

That’s when Donna and Tad arrive at the Cambers, and the Pinto shuts down completely in their driveway. Donna and Cujo face off for the next 48 hours, which takes up about half the novel, as Vic realizes something’s wrong and ends the business trip early.

Cujo also kills the sheriff during this slow-motion confrontation. Though Donna eventually kills the monster with Brett’s baseball bat, Tad dies of dehydration trapped inside the Pinto in the summer heat.

Donna and Vic slowly adapt to their new circumstances in the months afterward; there’s a chance that their marriage might survive, while Charity and Brett rebuild their lives and begin to hope for better times ahead.

Thoughts

This is a very Stephen King work, meaning that on the surface it’s violent and a little scary, but also delves into depths of darkness and mystery that require pondering afterward.

It’s definitely a page-turner, with moments of humor and pathos.

It’s written in third-person omniscent narration, skipping from the thoughts of one character to another, including Cujo himself.

Is it worth reading? Yes. Does it heighten my unease around large dogs? Slightly, yeah. Was it Cujo’s fault he became a monster? The damage he wreaked was awful, and can’t ever be repaired, but I wouldn’t say so, and neither would King.

On the final page, King writes:

“He had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to always do all the things his MAN, or his WOMAN, or most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. But he had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies.”

For more general canine news, information and tail-waggin’ fun, be sure to follow and interact with Dog O’Day on our Facebook and Twitter pages.