Pet Sematary by Steven King

Sometimes, dead is better

Okay, I have a confession to make… I’m not really a Steven King fan. Although, full disclosure, outside of his 2000s-era Entertainment Weekly columns, I really haven’t read much of his stuff.

I vaguely remember hacking my way through Dreamcatcher as a teen but remember virtually nothing about it. I’ve tried (twice) to read The Stand and given up less than a quarter of the way through on both attempts. I did complete It, although it took me more than half a year to slog my way through and I found it more of a chore than anything else.

I have seen a slew of King-related films, but my favorite, of course, is the one he famously hates: Kubrick’s The Shining.

But I should like him, right? I mean, he’s the fucking king of horror literature.

So I was determined to find something of his that I could read and enjoy. I did my research and tried to find what was popularly regarded as his scariest novel. Turns out Pet Sematary was repeatedly claimed to be the holder of that particular title, and at a manageable 500-odd pages my hope was that it’d be an accessible read to boot.

Folks, I’m glad to report that I’ve finally found a Steven King book I can unabashedly recommend!

Here’s the gist: Louis Creed moves his young family into a big house on the edge of a small town. Across the street, in the woods beyond, there is a makeshift graveyard that’s become the final resting place of many local pets. But further back there is another hallowed ground — one that doesn’t keep its dead things in the ground. Things buried there come back to life. Well, not back to life exactly, but rather reanimated in a perverse imitation of life.

A tragedy occurs. Naturally, Louis decides to take advantage of this convenient site. Horror ensues.

I’ll say this: Pet Sematary is a thrilling read, and King masterfully tightens the screws as the book progresses, carefully ratcheting up the tension as he builds towards the inevitable. Things are signposted along the way, yes, but the getting there, in this case, is half the fun.

That doesn’t mean that King totally abandons those quirks that I find less enjoyable in his writing. There’s a lot of old-fashioned character fluff that could be easily excised and which would help the book really tick along (I’m thinking mostly of Louis’ day-to-day in his medical office at the university and his internal musings that are typically King), but some of it is quite enjoyable (Louis and his elderly neighbor Jud Crandall routinely enjoying late-evening beers together on the porch).

I’m also torn on the whole issue of lapses into “did it really happen or was it all a dream,” such as when Louis wakes from a nightmare set in the titular cemetery to discover his bare feet have dirt on them. But did he actually sleepwalk there? Flourishes like that can inspire a reaction from the reader, but they also don’t really add anything to the overall horror story being told here. I was never quite convinced that it all gelled... or had a point.

At the end of the day, however, I’m happy that I’ve found a Steven King novel I can hand-on-heart say I enjoyed and can recommend to others. Perhaps this is the corner of the Kingiverse I should stay in: early, basic, straightforward horror stories and leave the more self-indulgent epic stuff for others. (Further recommendations in this vein welcome!)

Honestly, my biggest criticism is that even though there’s an explanation why it’s called Pet Sematary, I still think the book’s title should have been spelled correctly.