Simetierre

Horror has been my most-read genre for like six years in a row, and yet this was somehow my first Stephen King, which is kinda crazy in retrospect. Never really had a rationale beyond, "he's doing just fine without my support," but my book club finally forced my hand.

The book is obviously dated with references, the way it handles female characters, and how apparently the concept of an "indoor cat" simply did not exist in the early 80's (lots of general acceptance that cats live brutal, violent lives until they face brutal, violent deaths and there's simply nothing that can be done about that). I try not to hold that against the work as a whole, but this is why I generally don't have luck with older books. Didn't help that I just did not connect with our protagonist Louis Creed at all, and definitely not with the main supporting character of Jud Crandall, the old man neighbor who welcomes the newly-moved family to the town. Pretty much everyone in this book rubbed me the wrong way come to think of it.

However, that ended up being a (possibly unintentional) blessing in disguise, because some pretty horrible things happen to these people, and my enjoyment as a reader was enhanced by the fact that I actively disliked most of them. Still, the events circle around to being so terrible that I end up coming round again, but by then it's too late. Also just the fact that there's a specific event you see coming from a mile away, you as the reader don't want it to happen, but know that it will because there's no other way it could be, and having to watch it play out anyway all worked together to instill a well-executed sense of dread over the last half of the book.

I'm sure this would've landed better for me had I read it when it first came out, but I'm just too used to contemporary values and expectations to want to dive into his back catalog from this era. At least I can finally say that I've read one of his books.