Pet Sematary: A NovelKindle

Stephen King said that this work was by far his darkest. He admitted that the book was sort of based on his own experiences living with his family near a busy highway. His daughter's cat was struck and killed by a car on that highway and King begin to ponder what if the cat could come back to life. What would the cat be like? How would he react if he buried the cat only to see the cat back in his yard the next day? This led to his writing of this book.

As others have written before me, this book is dark. King leads you into the mind of Dr. Louis Creed who is the main character in the book. Dr. Creed moves his family from Chicago to Ludlow, Maine where he will work at the University. Dr. Creed is a young doctor with a young family. His daughter Ellie has a cat named Churchill (Church for short) and there is his young son Gage. His wife Rachel is the love of his life. The family adjusts to life in Ludlow but sadly Church is killed on the busy highway that the Creed's life next to. Louis' older neighbor, Jud, wants to help Louis after Louis saved his wife's Norma from dying. He takes Dr. Creed and his dead cat to the "Pet Sematary" (well actually past it) to an old Native American burial ground. They bury the cat and the next day, the cat comes back to the Creed home but remains a bit odd the rest of the book.

In the end, the tragic results of Jud taking Louis beyond the pet cemetery works havoc on their lives. Many have written the end but I will not. I will leave that for you.

Overall, this book makes you think about death and life. It makes you wrestle with resurrection. For the disciple of Christ, we know that Christ has won the victory over death (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Our hope is in Him (1 Thessalonians 4:13). In the end, Christ Himself will cast death into eternal destruction (Revelation 20:14). However, the child of God through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9) will receive eternal life with their Lord (Romans 6:23; Revelation 21:7). While King shows Dr. Creed struggling with death and coming to terms with death (which he never does), the disciple of Christ can rest knowing that death has lost its power (John 5:24-25).

Trade paperback 2018 UPDATE June 2020 (a little overdue) I had re-bought this item a few months later, and got the correct cover art, the one Amazon depicts in their stock photo. However, it's got glue and bits of paper hanging off of it, just a real mess. I saw a copy of the movie tie in addition from the following year available at the big'ol' W A L M..... and it looked to be more robustly printed, but I have mixed feelings about the 2019 movie, although I haven't seen it because it just looks like it unnecessarily adds a bunch of layers that really add nothing to the story, but like I said -- I haven't seen it (yet...(?))....

The "Gallery book 2002" info that the product URL cites is in reference to a popart "comic book style" cover-art that didn't do any favors regarding capturing the appeal of the book visually. The movie this book's author wrote was a by the numbers dry as paint stupid MOFO adaptation. So what's left? That stupid hardcover dust jacket that Doubleday haphazardly slapped onto the initial pressings of the book and the subsequent mass market paperback edition? A respectful hardcover re-issue, put together as part of a set of some of his books sometime in the early 1990s, is almost impossible to find. There was a so-so trade paperback released in England a few years ago with a really stupid tagline.

This book deserves a good cover. It's one of those books that's really really really really really GOOD. It's not something God himself would want to read. It's probably not something you yourself would want to make a religion based upon or apply to your life philosophy. Stephen King wrote this book and disowns it because it isn't "truthful" enough. Who cares? Stephen King ain't anyone to talk authoratiatively about the truth. His lesbian daughter preaches the gospel for a living. Apparently having one's head up their butt runs in the family. This book strikes at the heart of man. The heart of man is deceitful above all things --- and exceedingly wicked. We don't need Stephen King to deliver us from that. Some people don't even want to be delivered from that. Sometimes you can't escape it. This book isn't THE TRUTH. But it does speak to the true hearts of real people for better or worse. And it does so in a manner far more effective than most of his horror novels ever did. CARRIE was not the POS that he initially thought it to be when he set out to write it before giving up on it, but it wasn't half as nerverattling as this. 'SALEM'S LOT, THE SHINING and CUJO et al were well and good, but this is the granddaddy of them all. I'm not buying it until I can get it with a decent cover. I tried ordering it after Amazon.com updated the stock photo and they sent me the old one with the popart cover. I guess they still had some of them leftover. This cover-art is the same as the mass market paperback edition issued in February 2017, but I'm not going to pay $9+ so I can "proudly own" this book in some pulp novel format. It'd be one thing if I just didn't have room for it, but unlike my CD collection that is easier to use because its' not vinyl, a trade paperback is every bit as useful as a mass market paperback. The pages are no more flimsy or cumbersome than a mass market and it just freakin' looks better. And a hardcover reissue that doesn't cost $50++ doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. IT (1986) -- also one of S.K.'s superior works -- did finally get a hardcover reissue, but not only was the cover rather pathetic, but it had that stupid promo quip "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" Since the makers of this past summer's re-make of the movie IT are apparently planning to also remake PET SEMATARY (about dang time!), we might get an equally lame hardcover edition of this book finally -- or maybe it'll be a quality hardcover pressing, i.e.: the mistakes of the past are not repeated (it could happen). Perhaps someone who doesn't feel the need to 'I would tell you, but you're not worthy...." will point me to a place on the www where I can find a copy that I can afford(?)