Movies - Cujo

	Movies - Cujo

Cujo is a 1981 novel by Stephen King. Cujo himself is a St. Bernard dog.

The novel is set almost entirely in the fictitious town of Castle Rock, Maine. It begins with a reference to Frank Dodd, the Castle Rock deputy sheriff whose murder spree was the central episode in the first half of The Dead Zone. In fact, there is some hinting to the question of whether or not Cujo is possessed by Dodd and whether or not Dodd is haunting the Trenton house (Tad is scared by a monster in his closet). Except for these vague hints, there are no supernatural elements in the book and is mainly a thriller.

The most unusual stylistic element of the narrative is that it occasionally switches to the perspective of the canine title character. Also noteworthy is that, atypically for King's early work, there is an exploration of how marriages work or don't; this is done through the parallelism of the middle-class Trentons and the blue-collar Cambers.

Cujo belongs to the Cambers, a family living outside of Castle Rock where the father does mechanic work. When Cujo gets rabies he attacks and kills Joe Camber, the father, and Cambers' neighbor, Gary Pervier. Joe's son and wife are spared when they go on a trip to visit relatives.

The Trentons (Vic, Donna, and four-year-old Tad) are having problems of their own when Vic finds out that Donna, the typical bored housewife, has been cheating on him. In the midst of this household tension, Vic's business is failing, and he is forced to leave on a business trip to Massachusetts. Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to Cambers'. However, the car breaks down as soon as they reach the farm. With Joe dead there is nobody on the farm except for Cujo, and thus begins a three day struggle to not only keep Donna herself alive, but also her son Tad. They are trapped in the car, with the murderous rabid dog outside, during the hottest summer in Castle Rock history. In the end, Vic, worried that his wife has not answered the phone at home, returns to Castle Rock and figures out where they are, yet by the time he gets there, Donna has killed Cujo in a gory showdown and Tad has died of dehydration after being trapped in the car for three days.

The novel is generally not perceived as King's best work, and at 319 pages (Hardcover Edition by Viking Press) it is one of his shorter ones. King has said he does not really remember writing the book as he was in a drug-induced stupor for the duration of its authorship. He reportedly took both speed and mushrooms simultaneously.

It was adapted by Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier for the screenplay of a 1983 movie of the same name, directed by Lewis Teague.

Trivia

In the novel, we learn that at least part of the Castle Rock area is underlain by limestone which has undergone karst erosion. A bat cave has developed in this rock.

The dog that played Cujo in the movie was reported to be so friendly, they had trouble with him wagging his tail when he was supposed to be mauling someone to death. To overcome this, the crew had to tie his tail down. However, you can spot "Cujo" still happily wagging away when he corners one of the characters.

This novel is one of the few of King's works that has no apparent connections to the Dark Tower series.

ISBN

ISBN 0606028617 (prebound, 1981)
ISBN 0670451932 (hardcover, 1981)
ISBN 0451161351 (mass market paperback, 1982, reprint)
ISBN 9700508889 (hardcover, 1983)
ISBN 0816156670 (hardcover, 1993, Large Type Edition)

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Movies - Cujo

Trivia

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