Cujo

Cujo (1981) is a psychological horror novel by Stephen King. The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1982, and was made into a film of the same name in 1983.

The story focuses on the Trenton family: Vic, an advertisement designer, his adulterous wife Donna, and their four-year-old son Tad. The latter two are terrorized by the eponymous Cujo, a rabid St. Bernard. The narrative takes place in the author's recurrent fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, and is interspersed with vignettes from the seemingly mundane lives of other residents. There are no official chapters, but rather breaks in between passages, which indicate when the author is alternating to a different point of view.

Cujo also references King's previous novel, The Dead Zone, on several occasions. For instance, serial killer Frank Dodd has now achieved a kind of bogeyman status in Castle Rock.

Cujo's name was based on the nom de guerre of Willie Wolfe, one of the men responsible for orchestrating Patty Hearst's kidnapping and indoctrination into the Symbionese Liberation Army.