the (almost) goodest boy there ever was

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!*



This amazing, mindblowing, terrifying book has me most enamored in one particular way that I'll focus this review on, and that way constitutes how King manages to blend childlike types of fears with adult, "real world" types of fears so seamlessly.
This quote is, I think, one of the best cases of seeing how King does this in a nutshell: "It was like looking into the dark and seeing something that was going to eat you up." One of the adult characters is being referenced in this haunting description, but it so closely mirrors the fears of Tad Trenton concerning the monster he's sure is in his closet, waiting to pounce and eat him once the safety of parents is gone. This is how the whole book begins: A middle of the night scare with a sure evil lurking in the dark recesses of a closet. This is where the first intrigue of the novel begins---is there actually going to be a monster in the closet, or is this a larger metaphor for what we'll see later as the plot unfolds?---and it sure hooked me.
The other cast of characters, all adults excluding Brett, son of Joe and Charity Camber, experience moments of paralysis at the hands of adult like fears: infidelity, what to do after infidelity's been brought into the light, divorce, verbal abuse, getting older, wanting to escape a certain kind of lifestyle, and so on and so forth. Cujo somehow embodies all of these fears in his enormous, horrifying physicality, especially for Donna Trenton, the character most forced to look in the face of her fear and, I think, the character who experiences the most growth and heartbreak as a result. 
Having the book be one long chapter with abrupt breaks in the third person omniscient narration feels like a psychological horror in and of itself. And giving Cujo some interiority, letting readers know that he was not always the killing machine he becomes, but rather just a very big dog with the desire to be a good boy, makes Cujo's part in this story all the more ironic. Really, it hurts my heart and makes his violence all the more disturbing.
I think it's very interesting how Frank Dodd and Cujo are loosely but indefinitely linked as coming from the same source of evil. But the lines blend between if Cujo is a reincarnated Frank Dodd, now possesses the spirit of evil that was also once in Frank Dodd, or is just a once good dog diminished by the terrible effects of rabies and made to seem like something more akin to Fate because of the assorted fears and struggles of the characters.
I'll be thinking about all that's at work in this masterful book for quite a while. The female (and motherly) rage blending Donna with Cujo's rage at the end had me gasping. Stephen King, you are a master at literary timing.



One of my favorite quotes from Cujo:

"But in high school the business of irrevocable choices began. Doors slipped shut with a faint locking click that was only heard clearly in the dreams of later years."

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