Pet Sematary (Book)

**Pet Sematary** is a 1983 **Horror Novel** By **American Horror Writer Stephen King**, It Focus's on a Creed Family as they Move as they move from Chicago to a House in a Near-by Small Town Called Ludlow, After Meeting With The Neighbor, The Family has a Tragic Event When The Family Cat Dies and is brought back to life when The Neighbor shows Louis the Creed Father what lies beyond the Pet Sematary.

## Plot

Louis Creed, a doctor from Chicago, is appointed director of the University of Maine's campus health service. He moves to a large house near the small town of Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their two young children, Ellie and Gage, and Ellie's cat, Winston Churchill ("Church"). From the moment they arrive, the family runs into trouble: Ellie hurts her knee, and Gage is stung by a bee. Their new neighbor, an elderly man named Jud Crandall, comes to help. He warns Louis and Rachel about the highway that runs past their house, which is frequented by speeding trucks.

Jud and Louis quickly become close friends. Since Louis's father died when he was three, he sees Jud as a surrogate father. A few weeks after the Creeds move in, Jud takes the family on a walk in the woods behind their home. A well-tended path leads to a pet cemetery (misspelled "sematary" on the sign) where the children of the town bury their deceased animals. The outing provokes a heated argument between Louis and Rachel the next day. Rachel disapproves of discussing death, and she worries about how Ellie may be affected by what she saw at the "sematary". It is explained later that Rachel was traumatized by the early death of her sister, Zelda, from spinal meningitis—an issue that is brought up several times in flashbacks. Louis empathizes with his wife and blames her parents for her trauma, who left Rachel at home alone with her sister when she died.

Louis himself has a traumatic experience during the first week of classes. Victor Pascow, a student who has been fatally injured in an automobile accident, addresses his dying words to Louis personally, even though the two men are strangers. On the night following Pascow's death, Louis experiences what he believes is a very vivid dream in which he meets Pascow, who leads him to the deadfall at the back of the "sematary" and warns him not to go beyond there. Louis wakes up in bed the next morning, convinced it was, in fact, a dream—until he finds his feet and bedsheets covered with dried mud and pine needles. Nevertheless, Louis dismisses the dream as the product of the stress he experienced during Pascow's death, coupled with his wife's lingering anxieties about the subject of death.

On Halloween, Jud's wife Norma suffers a near-fatal heart attack but makes a quick recovery thanks to Louis's help. Jud is grateful and decides to repay Louis after Church is run over outside his home around Thanksgiving. Rachel and the kids are visiting Rachel's parents in Chicago, but Louis frets over breaking the bad news to Ellie. Sympathizing with Louis, Jud takes him to the "sematary", supposedly to bury Church. But instead of stopping there, Jud leads Louis farther on to "the real cemetery": an ancient burial ground that was once used by the Miꞌkmaq Tribe. There, Louis buries the cat on Jud's instruction. The next afternoon, Church returns home; the usually vibrant and lively cat now acts ornery and, in Louis's words, "a little dead". Church hunts for mice and birds, ripping them apart without eating them. He also smells so bad that Ellie no longer wants him in her room at night. Jud confirms that Church has been resurrected and that Jud himself once buried his dog there when he was younger. Louis, deeply disturbed, begins to wish that he had not buried Church there.

Several months later, two-year-old Gage is killed by a speeding truck. Overcome with despair, Louis considers bringing his son back to life with the help of the burial ground. Jud, guessing what Louis is planning, attempts to dissuade him by telling him the story of Timmy Baterman, the last person who was resurrected by the burial ground. Timmy Baterman was killed in action during World War II. Timmy's body was shipped back to the United States, and his father Bill buried Timmy in the burial ground. Timmy returned malevolent, terrorizing the people of the town with secrets that Jud asserts he had no earthly way of knowing. Timmy was stopped by his father, Bill, who killed Timmy and set their house on fire before shooting himself. Jud states that he believes that whatever came back was not Timmy, but a "demon" that had possessed his corpse. He concludes that "sometimes, dead is better" and states that "the place has a power... its own evil purpose", and that it may have caused Gage's death because Jud introduced Louis to it.

Despite Jud's warning and his own reservations about the idea, Louis's grief and guilt spur him to carry out his plan. Louis exhumes Gage's body from his grave and inters him in the burial ground. Gage is resurrected, entirely different from when he was alive. Now malicious in both his words and actions, he finds one of Louis's scalpels and kills both Jud and Rachel. Louis kills both Church and Gage with lethal injections of morphine from his medical supply stock.

After burning the Crandall house down, Louis returns to the burial ground with his wife's corpse, thinking that if he buries the body faster than he did Gage's, there will be a different result. Following all of these tragic events, Louis has also aged in physical appearance, with white hair and wrinkles. One of his colleagues, Steve Masterton, notices him walking into the woods with Rachel's body. Steve, while fearful and concerned, is influenced by the power of the burial ground too, and even considers helping Louis bury Rachel, but he flees in terror and eventually moves away to St. Louis. Later, Louis sits indoors alone, playing solitaire, and Rachel's reanimated corpse walks up behind him and drops a cold hand on his shoulder, while her voice rasps, "Darling."

## Characters

### Creed Family

* **Louis Creed:** The Main Character, and Father of Ellie and Gage Creed, He is a Doctor From Chicago who moved his Family with his Wife Rachel to a Big House in the Fictional Town of Ludlow Maine, There He Meets Jud Crandall the Neighbor, when the Family Cat is Killed Jud shows him a Burial Site Beyond the Pet Sematary, There They Bury The Family Cat and it comes back to Life, When Gage, Louis's 2 year old son his Run over by Truck, Jud Warns him not too do what he knows he is gonna do about the Burial Site Beyond the Pet Sematary However Louis does not listen to this.
* **Rachel Creed:** Louis's Wife, and Mother of Ellie and Gage Creed, She is Traumatized by the Death of her Sister Zelda who Died of spinal meningitis when she was young.
* **Ellie Creed:** Louis and Rachel Creed's Daughter, She likes her Cat Church, She is a Bright 5 years old, she is the only survivor of The Pet Sematary Incident.
* **Gage Creed:** Louis and Rachel's 2 year old son, He Gets run over by a Truck When Running into the Highway, Louis uses the Burial Ground to Bring Gage back from the Dead despite the Warning from Jud the Neighbor about Burying People in The Burial Ground Beyond the Pet Sematary.

* **Irwin & Dory Goldman:** Rachel's Parents and Ellie and Gage's Grandparents including Louis's Creed's In-Laws, They are seen and mentioned throughout the story.
* **Zelda:** Rachel Creed's Dead Sister who died of spinal meningitis, A Young Rachel was Left alone while her sister died and her Parents were away, She has been Traumatized by the Event Ever Sense.
* **Church:** The Family Cat, Ellie Loves her Cat, But when Church gets run over Jud helps Louis Bury Church in the Burial Ground Beyond the Pet Sematary, where Church is Brought back to life and is not the Same Cat, He also Sticks to Ellie.

### Crandall Family

* **Jud Crandall:** The Neighbor Across the Street From the Creed Family, He Becomes Good Friends with Louis, When Church get run over and Dies, Jud Shows Louis the Burial Ground Beyond The Pet Sematary, He Helps Louis Bury Church there and The Family Cat Comes Back to Life and is not the Same, Jud Told Louis he had Bury his Dog there and The Dog Came back to Life too, When Gage Dies after being run over by a Truck, Jud Warns Him not to bury his son in the Burial Ground, He Tells The Story of Bill and Timmy Baterman when Bill Bury his Son There, Timmy was not the Same and Bill soon killed Timmy set the house on fire and killed himself, still Louis does not listen to Jud's Warning.

* **Norma Crandall:** Jud's Wife, She Almost Dies of a Heart-Attack in the First Part of The Book, But Louis Saves her.

### Minor Charcaters

* **Victor Pascow:** A University Student Who Died in an Accident, Victor's Ghost Try's Warn Louis and The Creed Family About the Burial Ground.

## Background

In 1979, King was a "writer-in-residence" at the University of Maine and the house he was renting was adjacent to a major road where dogs and cats were often killed by oncoming trucks. After his daughter's cat was killed by a truck along that road, he explained the death of the pet to his daughter and buried the cat. Three days later, King imagined what would happen if a family suffered the same tragedy but the cat came back to life "fundamentally wrong". He then imagined what would happen if that family's young son were also killed by a passing truck. He decided to write a book based on these ideas, and that the book would be a re-telling of "The Monkey's Paw" (1902), a short story by W. W. Jacobs about parents whose son resurrects after they wish for that to happen.

King has gone on record stating that of all the novels he has written, *Pet Sematary* is the one which genuinely scared him the most.

## Adaptations

### Films

The first film adaptation, *Pet Sematary*, was released in 1989. Directed by Mary Lambert, it starred Dale Midkiff as Louis, Fred Gwynne as Jud, Denise Crosby as Rachel, Brad Greenquist as Victor, Miko Hughes as Gage, and Blaze Berdahl as Ellie. King wrote the screenplay and had a cameo as a minister. Male actor Andrew Hubatsek portrayed Zelda because the filmmakers could not find a woman who was gaunt enough to portray the dying girl. The film received mixed reviews, but it was a commercial success. A sequel, *Pet Sematary Two*, was released in 1992.

A second film adaptation of the novel was released on April 5, 2019. Directed by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch, the film stars Jason Clarke as Louis Creed, Amy Seimetz as Rachel Creed, John Lithgow as Jud Crandall, Jeté Laurence as Ellie Creed, and twins Hugo and Lucas Lavoie as Gage Creed.

### Radio

In 1997, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a dramatization of the story in six half-hour episodes, later re-edited into three hour-long episodes. It was adapted by Gregory Evans and starred John Sharian as Louis Creed, Briony Glassco as Rachel Creed and Lee Montague as Jud Crandall. The production was directed by Gordon House.

### Music

The Ramones recorded a song of the same name as the theme for the 1989 film adaptation. It appeared on their album *Brain Drain*. It was later covered by the band Starcrawler for the 2019 film.

## Reviews

* The Novel is Fantastic, Who Knew that Stephen King could be afraid of his own work?, like he is the one who wrote it, I Remember When Reading I Thought Gage's Name was Greg for some reason, and I also saw some References to *The Shinning and Salem's Lot*, So that was good to add in a suppose. (*Review By **Rebekah Rodriguez**, October 20th 2021)*

## Videos

PET SEMATARY - Book Review -YearofHorrorBookClubReviewPET SEMATARY FULL AUDIOBOOK Stephen King Audio BookAudio-book