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This book is terrifying. More so because the important events in the story could all actually happen. They are real possibilities. This story would not work in today’s age of cell phones and constant communication, but for anyone with a memory of the way things used to be, it reads as all too possible. On a personal note, I have always kept a small box of water bottles and snacks in my car since learning to drive because of THIS book.

Any true King fan knows how he loves to tie his novels together with the tenuous threads of shared locales and characters. Cujo makes much use of the Frank Dodd “bad guy� from The Dead Zone, completely skipping Firestarter references. Dodd has become something of a bogeyman used to scare children into behaving and a fear the adults in town would like to forget.

I love all of King’s work (not equally!) but have always felt his novels that do not contain a supernatural element make the best movies. Cujo was an excellent movie! What’s funny is that there is a very real undercurrent of the supernatural in the book that does not appear in the movie at all. Dodd is that element. The novel hints that the evil in Dodd is still hanging around Castle Rock. I’m spoiling nothing here by saying Cujo has rabies, but there are very definite pointers to that case of rabies also being a manifestation of the evil of Dodd. King’s hints in this direction are not crucial to the story, but they certainly add a scary element as you read.

King has said, on several occasions, that he wrote this novel at the height of his alcoholism and addiction and it shows. There are no chapters or formal narrative breaks. You are almost forced to read at breakneck speed. Probably the way he wrote it! The narrative takes place over three days with a few flashbacks thrown in to lengthen the plot, but the pace never slows.

There are quite a few coincidences necessary for a series of unfortunate events to occur, but I never found these coincidences unbelievable or even far-fetched. Often in life, the worst tragedies occur because of a string of coincidences. In my life alone there have been times when I’ve said “if this was a movie, I’d stop watching.� because really, how many coincidences can occur? Apparently, a lot!

Although the idea of this situation is a bit horrific and indicates gore, King doesn’t use a lot of gore in these pages. There’s some, but not a lot. I think almost anyone could get a thrill of some sort from this novel. The movie is also terrific. I think Dee Wallace gives the performance of a lifetime and it was King that gave her the material to do so.

Read it. Watch it. You won’t be sorry.