Cujo (Audiobook Review)

2010 Penguin Audio
Written by: Stephen King; Read by: Lorna Raver

The summer of 1980 is the worst of Donna Trenton's life. Her husband's advertising agency is struggling. He's also just found out about an affair she recently broke off with a psychotic man named Steve Kemp, and she's scared he'll take their four-year-old son away and leave her. Her car is also on the fritz. The old, rundown Ford Pinto is giving her fits, and when her husband leaves for a business trip, she and her  young son take the old car to the repair shop on the edge of town. Hopefully, it's an easy repair. Maybe the shop's enormous St. Bernard, Cujo, will be there. Her son has a soft spot for the old dog. Unbeknownst to Donna, though, Cujo is having an even worse summer than she is. While chasing a rabbit in the woods, Cujo was bitten by a rabid bat. As the dog's sweet psyche is burned away, it's replaced by the evil spirit of the town's recently deceased mass killer. As Donna and her son pull up to the shop, Cujo approaches. His eyes are red, a deep growl emanates from his throat...and he's covered in blood. 
Cujo isn't quite top-tier Stephen King, but it's still an above-average effort. Exploring King's pet themes of societal rot in the late 70s and early 80s, the book features numerous pretty facades with darkness lurking underneath. From a crumbling marriage that looks great to outsiders, to male after male character who is secretly lascivious and abusive, to the kindly looking dog who's harboring a deadly, mind-wasting virus, King keeps hammering the point home, though I'd love to know of what time in human history King doesn't think society was rotten. He's able to make the once kindly Cujo's transformation heartbreaking, as the dog and the child characters in the book are the only innocents, and ironically, generally the ones hurt most throughout the book. In fact, Cujo features one of King's least sentimental endings, on par with the denouement's of both Salem's Lot and Storm of the Century. The book moves briskly and the moments of horror, particularly when Donna and her son are trapped in the Pinto, are handled as deftly as expected from King. Overall, it's not among my favorites of his works, but it's far from the bottom.
For those listening to the audiobook as I did, this Lorna Raver-read version is a solid option. I was surprised at the start to find that instead of the usual folksy older male reader present in most of the King audiobooks I've listened to, there's a folksy older female reader. While Raver's work here has split listener's opinions, I think she is generally pretty good. The dual protagonists of the book are both female (Cujo's female owner, Charity, and her son have an adventure out of town, away from her abusive husband, while Cujo is going on his rampage back home), so it makes sense to have a woman read the book. Raver comes off a bit like an older school librarian with a Dead Kennedy's sticker on her car, who swears a little bit when the parents aren't around. She nails the typical Maine accent found in most of King's work, though her voices for the children in the book are a little too creepy.  You'll know very early in, though, if she's not for you. Overall, I think she does a solid job, much like King does with the writing here. Not the best, but it's still a decent time.