Who's a good boy?
Released in September 1981, Cujo was a bit of a rarity in the Stephen King canon up to that point, in that it didn't involve anything supernatural. The evil, horror, and dread of the premise was amplified by the fact that it could be a real story. Up to that point (excluding the Bachman stories), the majority of King's output dealt with something otherworldly. Vampires, Telekenesis, Randall Flagg, you get the picture. Cujo deviated away from that and put the evil into a magnificent, fluffy, lovable St. Bernard. By the simple nature of a dog being a dog, Cujo chases a rabbit into a little cave, finds himself having an unexpected encounter with a bat, and gets a scratch on the nose. No ordinary scratch, of course, because Stephen King doesn't much deal with normal events. This bat carried rabies, and Cujo was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From there, the worst case scenarios all seem to fall into place like the tumblers in a lock.
OK, so what can be said about a book about a dog? Well, a lot, and it's not necessarily about the dog. There are a lot of other factors and subplots at play, but ultimately it boils down to parental instinct. You can't protect your child from everything, but goddammit if you don't try.
Everybody knows a guy, right?
Got a leaky sink faucet? I know a guy.
Think you might have a hole in the attic where squirrels get in? I know a guy.
Think your car might have something wrong with the engine? I know a guy.
Everybody knows a guy. Vic and Donna Trenton knew a guy. He wasn't the friendliest type. Rough around the edges, but he did good work out of his barn and it didn't cost near as much as going to the dealership. When Vic left town for business, Donna packed up their son Tad in their less-than-trusty Ford Pinto and started making their way to Joe Cambers' place outside of town. Joe Cambers was not a nice man. Joe was very controlling and manipulative to his wife and son. A man's home is his castle, and Joe Cambers expected his castle to be tended to. After some serious horse trading, he'd finally let his wife and son leave town on a little trip of their own to see some family, and Joe decided to use their absence to go on a little trip of his own. He and his drinking buddy were going to head to Boston and raise some hell.
Cujo, the Cambers' family dog, had other plans.
Shouldn't you have a barrel of brandy around your neck, doggy?
The thing about most of Stephen King's books up to this point was the deniability. They could scare the bejesus out of you, but when you're done reading it, your mind says 'There's no such thing as vampires' and you eventually laugh it off as a fun ride. Not the sort of thing that can happen in 'real life', you tell yourself.
But what if:
You have to go out of town on a last second business trip that could mean life or death for your company
and then
Your wife and kid are in town all by themselves, certainly capable of handling things in your absence, except you know that no-good car of hers has been giving her trouble
and then
You call home from out on the road and there's no answer. At first, you justify it and make excuses for it in your brain. 'Maybe they're at the store or the park' you say, but the second time you call and there's no one home, the worry starts to build
and then
Two full days go by. Two days in the 1980's, in that ancient world without cellphones or the internet. No answer at home, and you're pacing back and forth. Why isn't anyone picking up the phone? Where are you, Donna? Are they safe? Were they in a car wreck? Did she pack up the kid and leave me? Why isn't any one home? What if they got in an accident? What if they were driving that shitty car and the engine crapped out on the traintracksandtheywerestuckthereandtheycouldntgetthedoorsopenandalltheycouldseewasthebrightwhitelightchargingtowardsthemanddidtheyholdeachotherandscreamandohmygaawwwwwwwddddddddd
Wasting energy ruminating about irrational worst case scenarios. That's called catastrophizing. That is a real thing. The irrational fear of the unknown, triggered by an ambiguous event. I, personally, was notorious for it in my younger days. A worry wart. A Nervous Nell. If my wife and kids were 5 minutes late getting home, my mind immediately started spinning worst case scenario thoughts. It's the kind of thing that could escalate into a full-blown anxiety attack. I've gotten much better at managing it now, and I'm able to keep my impending panic at bay, but that wasn't always the case. Catastrophizing is a lot more common that you might think. It's not exclusive to being a worrisome parent. Anyone can fall victim to it due to any number of triggers. In one way or another, it's something that most everyone can identify with.
What is the goal of a good storyteller? Identify something that people can relate to and seize on it. By 1981, King himself was a parent and was able to identify with the aforementioned fear of protecting your child. That common concept served as perfect fodder for a storyline. Ol' SK probably thought 'Well, instead of it being irrational worry, what if the worst case scenario DID happen?' and ran with it.
Don't you hate it when bums try and wash your windshield at the stop light?
Cujo, as a book, was incredibly effective. As the reader, I could find myself identifying with both Vic and Donna Trenton. Vic's uncertainty and building panic about his family. The struggle between work commitments and the negative impact it can have on your home life. In Donna's case, the basic instinct to protect your child from harm. The guilt you feel when you put them in a situation where they get scared, or hurt, or outside of their comfort zone. The sense of helplessness and failure when things are out of your control.
Don't get me wrong, there's way more to this book than just identifying with Vic and Donna. King does a masterful job of relating small bits of narrative from Cujo's perspective as the rabies overtakes his body, his nervous system, and his train of thought. A friend of mine said that Cujo is his favorite SK book, and that he's read it multiple times. I didn't really understand that until I'd read it myself.
Cujo is so effective in it's simplicity. Unlike his previous books, you flip that last page and set the book down and... it haunts you. You don't just laugh it off because it's vampires or psychics. You might think 'Holy shit, man... that could really happen. Hell, that probably DID happen somewhere once.' Ok, THAT might be implausible, but it's not impossible, and under just the right set of circumstances...
I had a feeling of dread going into this book because I already knew how it ended, even though I hadn't read it before. When a book is over 30 years old, you don't get the luxury of spoiler alerts. It just so happened that this book's time in my reading cycle coincidentally lined up with the anniversary of my brother's death. The general swelling of melancholy and grief that happens near sad anniversaries coupled with this book's emotional triggers made for a few tough moments for me. I knew that was coming, and I was somewhat prepared for it. I stepped away from the book for a couple of days when it all got a little too heavy for me, but I missed it when I was gone.
By this time in his career (1981), SK has established Castle Rock and the SK version of Maine. Plot lines and characters from other stories are referenced and the universal fabric of King's geography and history is really beginning to bind. Cujo isn't a sequel to anything, but there are references to The Dead Zone in it. Of course, like most of SK's works at this point, it became a smash hit and was made into a movie. I'll be honest, other than the original cover photo posted at the beginning, the images in this post are from the movie. Despite my best intentions to keep the project about the written word, it's impossible to ignore the films that accompany, or are derived from, King's novels. It's also an easy source of visuals that I can get from the Google, because I'm lazy.
Cujo was a good dog who went bad because of a rabies infection. That's not the point of the novel, even though the dog is the antagonist. The point is that Cujo became the embodiment of The Fear. That fear that all parents have, to some degree or another. The desperate instinct to protect your child from harm. King knew that fear, and worked it into a great, realistic novel. It doesn't rank as my favorite SK novel, but even after a first read, it's leaped up towards the top. It's not real, but it could be. That's The Fear.
