Cujo
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| Cujo | |
 First edition cover |
|
| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Ben Dover |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Publication date | 1981 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-451-16135-1 |
| Preceded by | Firestarter |
| Followed by | Christine |
Cujo is a horror novel by Stephen King, published by Viking in 1981. The book tells the story of the middle-class Trenton family and rural Camber clan in Castle Rock, Maine. Mundane marital and financial difficulties plague disgraced advertising man Vic Trenton and his adulterous wife Donna. Their domestic problems are dwarfed by mortal danger when Donna and her four-year-old son Tad are terrorized by a rabid St. Bernard named Cujo. The novel was adapted into a 1983 film of the same name.
The book is a semi-sequel to King's earlier work The Dead Zone. "Cujo" makes several specific references to the events and characters of "The Dead Zone," even so much as to lead the audience to believe that Frank Dodd (killed in The Dead Zone) is possessing Cujo. King made later reference to the dog in his 1983 novel Pet Sematary, in which a character briefly alludes to "a big old St. Bernard (that) went rabid downstate a couple of years ago and killed four people", a clear allusion to the events of Cujo. Similar references appear in King's later novel Needful Things, as well as his novella The Body, from Different Seasons.
The name for the dog originated with King's research for a novel regarding the Symbionese Liberation Army and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. One of the members of the S.L.A., and Hearst's lover during her ordeal, was Willie Wolfe who took the name Cujo as his nom de guerre[1] [2]. This research also led King to write The Stand. Due to the popularity of King's novel and the subsequent film adaptation, the name of "Cujo" has since entered the realm of popular culture as a generic term or sarcastic insult in reference to a psychotic, violent, or imbalanced dog. It also is the nickname given to National Hockey League goalie Curtis Joseph, whose customized goalie masks feature drawings of ravenous dogs.
In his semi-biographical book On Writing, King said he wrote the book during the peak of a period of drug and alcohol abuse. He wrote that he remembered very little of writing Cujo as a result, one of his great regrets.
[edit] Plot summary
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.
The omniscient narrator second 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. Except for these vague hints, there are no supernatural elements in the book. While chasing a rabbit in the fields around the Cambers' house, Cujo is bitten by a bat 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 in Connecticut. Soon afterwards, Cujo attacks and kills the Cambers' neighbor, Gary Pervier, a WWII hero who has become a misanthropic alcoholic. Joe goes to the Pervier home to check on Gary, 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. Tad dies of heat stroke after being trapped for so long inside the boiling car, but soon after this, Donna escapes from the car and kills Cujo with a baseball bat. The Trentons are able to move on after Tad dies but not without great difficulty.
