Cujo: Collectors Edition (Collectors' Editions)
by Stephen King

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Book Reviews of Cujo: Collectors Edition (Collectors' Editions)

Book Review: Stephen King rabid dog story about the perils of inaction
Summary: 4 Stars

I was really surprised to go back and see how much King crammed into this novel. We are introduced to the cast of human characters, which are basically divided into the Trenton and Chambers families. Vic Trenton is a New York adman with a partner and small agency trying to hold on to his last account who moves to Castle Rock, Maine seeking peace away from the big city. His marriage is on the rocks, which explains why Donna is having an affair, but they both love their four-year-old son, Tad. Joe Chambers does auto repair out of his garage and does not treat his wife Charity right. Cujo is the best friend of their ten-year-old son Brett.

While circumstances align to put Donna and Tad in peril, we learn a whole lot about Vic Trenton's ad campaign for the Sharp Cereal Professor, which blows up in his face. Actually this is my favorite part of the novel and I really like the way Vic finds a way to "bury" the old fellow. The problem is that this is more interesting to me than what is happening back at the Chambers farm with Cujo, which just keeps dragging on and on. Not that the situation is unrealistic, in terms of what happens in the car where Donna and Tad are trapped by Cujo, but that the situation is established fairly early in the book and you know it is not going to be resolved until the end. When you go and see a movie you can lose all sense of time and not know that you have reached the end, but with a book you always have a rough idea of how many pages are left. It would be impractical to have a book where there were 50-100 blank pages at the end, or (surprise) another story, but that would have helped this novel.

"Cujo" is also in the running for being the biggest downer of all of King's novels and the fact that a character we remember fondly from another novel gets killed does not help us think back on the novel favorably. Looking back on King's career "Cujo" seems to be a start of a darker period in his stories where, as King would say, the Dionysian darkness is not dispelled by the Apollonian light. It seems that what bit poor old Cujo when he stuck his nose into that bolt-hole got a piece of King as well.

Summary of Cujo: Collectors Edition (Collectors' Editions)

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