“I didn’t know there could ever be hurt like this, and that’s the truth. It comes, over and over it comes, and it hurts so much…there’s no rest from it even when I go to sleep, when I go to sleep I dream it over and over again,” (King 262-263).
Louis Creed has just moved from Chicago to Ludlow, Maine with his wife and two young children. They settle into the smalltown surprisingly fast, befriending their across the road neighbour Jud Crandall who helps the Creeds feel welcome and shows them the grounds around their house, including the pet sematary where young children have buried their beloved pets. But when his daughter’s beloved cat dies, Jud shows Louis another burial ground that lies further in the woods, that lures people with dark promises. The Creeds are about to learn that sometimes dead is better.
Pet Sematary is often considered Stephen King’s best work. While I still have a lot to go in King’s bibliography, I will say that this book is amazing! I knew a lot of the plot before going in, as I think King is such a prolific writer at this point and such a figurehead in the horror genre that most a lot of the plots to his most famous works are known, but that didn’t stop my enjoyment of reading it.
SPOILER WARNING
What makes Pet Sematary so good is that it isn’t just a horror, it’s grief horror, and grief is a truly horrifying experience. My mom died eight years ago and her death and the grief that came after were terrifying. Grief is something that doesn’t go away, it stays and it’s something you grow around but something that attacks at the most unexpected moments. Like the quoted passage above, grief hurts over and over and over. And with grief comes change. I’m not the same person I was before, I never will be. The first year is the hardest, that doesn’t negate the grief that continues after, but it’s the firsts that rock you. With grief comes emotions, with grief comes madness. With grief comes dreams and ideas you wish would come true, an alternate reality with the person you love, one where they’re alive.
What I love about Pet Sematary is how it gets to the root of people because I really, truly believe it’s a story people can relate to. Despite the horror of the novel, of bringing someone back and them coming back different, it’s something people would do. In grief we do crazy things, we want things that can’t happen, but if given the chance who wouldn’t bring their loved one back from the dead? Even if they came back different? Even if they came back wrong? Grief doesn’t know logic. Grief is pain, and what else could stop the hurt then bringing the missed person back? Who wouldn’t do that if they had the chance?
It’s the truth of it that’s terrifying.
And it’s what makes the book and it’s characters so compelling, because Louis is a character who knows better. As a doctor he knows that death is natural and isn’t afraid of it, logically he knows that but once his son dies logic goes out the window. It doesn’t matter that death is natural or that we all will die because Louis has been to the burial ground and he knows there’s a force that can bring back the dead. And you can blame it on the Wendigo, you can blame it on supernatural forces at play, but the plain and simple truth is it’s grief. Grief can turn us mad, grief can turn us desperate, can make us think and want to do things that we know aren’t wise but are desperate enough to do anyways.
It’s what makes this book brilliant.
If you only read one Stephen King book in your life, let it be Pet Sematary. It’s a moving and terrifying look at grief and easily one of his best works.
Publication: November 14th 1983
Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 374 pages (Hardcover)
Source: Owned (Thanks Dad for having so many first edition Stephen King’s!!!)
Genre: Fiction, Horror
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
Set in a small town in Maine to which a young doctor, Louis Creed, and his family have moved from Chicago, Pet Sematary begins with a visit to a graveyard where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. But behind the “pet sematary,” there is another burial ground, one that lures people to it with seductive promises . . . and ungodly temptations.
As the story unfolds, so does a nightmare of the supernatural, one so relentless you won’t want . . . at moments . . . to continue reading . . . but will be unable to stop.
You do it because it gets hold of you, says the nice old man with the secret. You make up reasons . . . they seem like good reasons . . . but mostly you do it because once you’ve been up there, it’s your place, and you belong to it . . .up in the Pet Sematary–and beyond.
Sarah O'Connor 