Cujo (thing)

The book Cujo shares a location and even several characters with another Stephen King book, The Dead Zone. The plot for Cujo is not as intricate as The Dead Zone, however.

The title character is a placid, sloppy St. Bernard. He’s the proverbial good dog. Cujo contracts rabies after being bitten by a rabid bat one very hot summer and kills several people. He terrorizes the small Maine town of Castle Rock. This is scary enough, but there is an added suggestion that he is possessed by the ghost of local mass murderer Frank Dodd.

The victims of this Jaws with a slobber, the 200-pound family dog are two families. One being that of his owner, Joe Chambers, who is a backwoods auto mechanic. The second being the family of Vic Trenton. Vic is an ad man struggling to keep an important account while dealing with his wife’s infidelity and his four year old son’s fears.

This book appeals to young adults and anyone who is a fan of King’s style of writing. There is troubled marriage, alcohol use, love of a pet, and many other concepts faced in modern life, but all done with the twists that Stephen King is famous for.