I think this is one of King’s hardest hitting novels. It’s a gut punch in so many ways. But maybe my favourite thing about it is that King claims to have zero recollection of writing any of it, because he was at peak alcoholism and drug addiction. That’s a flex, maybe, but it also makes the cruel irony of the book hit even harder, to me, because it feels as though he may have simply been channeling it, no filter.
One of King's strengths is that he reminds his audience that the greatest horrors in real life are not supernatural things but the innately flawed and misguided activities of the human race.
I remember reading Cujo back when I was 15 or 16 and being a bit freaked by it as, like you say,it doesn’t have the traditional monster of previous horror books I’d read. The movie by Lewis Teague and starring Dee Wallace isn’t bad either
Vic Trenton is in a short story called Rattlesnakes in King’s new collection You Like it Darker which is also really good 👍🏼
Maybe this is too obvious to mention, but I guess I had never thought about in these terms before reading your macro-level summary: there is a cruel irony in a book about *humans* trapped in a car on a hot summer day by *a dog.*
I think this is one of King’s hardest hitting novels. It’s a gut punch in so many ways. But maybe my favourite thing about it is that King claims to have zero recollection of writing any of it, because he was at peak alcoholism and drug addiction. That’s a flex, maybe, but it also makes the cruel irony of the book hit even harder, to me, because it feels as though he may have simply been channeling it, no filter.
One of King's strengths is that he reminds his audience that the greatest horrors in real life are not supernatural things but the innately flawed and misguided activities of the human race.
Yeah, I definitely see that most clearly in this novel, compared to Salem's Lot and The Shining.
I remember reading Cujo back when I was 15 or 16 and being a bit freaked by it as, like you say,it doesn’t have the traditional monster of previous horror books I’d read. The movie by Lewis Teague and starring Dee Wallace isn’t bad either
Vic Trenton is in a short story called Rattlesnakes in King’s new collection You Like it Darker which is also really good 👍🏼
Not my favorite Stephen King novel, but one of his better ones. The ending hits a lot harder now than when I read it as a kid.
Maybe this is too obvious to mention, but I guess I had never thought about in these terms before reading your macro-level summary: there is a cruel irony in a book about *humans* trapped in a car on a hot summer day by *a dog.*
Cruel irony describes much of this book!