Louis Creed, who had lost his father at three and who had never known a grandfather, never expected to find a father as he entered his middle age, but that was exactly what happened . . . although he called this man a friend, as a grown man must do when he finds the man who should have been his father relatively late in life.
When Dr. Louis Creed, the new director of student health at the local university, is first taken by a neighbor friend to the pet cemetery in the woods behind his house, he thinks it is just an eccentric, if morbid, local site. However, after he learns that the Micmac Indian burial grounds beyond it have the power to bring his daughter's dead cat back from death, albeit slightly altered, he discovers that he has been touched by a power beyond anything imaginable. Then his son Gage is killed, just like the cat. . .
Annie Gottlieb - New York Times Like most of Mr. King novels, Pet Sematary loses credibility toward the end, as it gains in gore. . . Nor is Pet Sematary his best book as a piece of writing. . . . Reader, beware. This is a book for those who like to take their scare straight -- with a chaser of despair.
Voice of Youth Advocates - Mary K. Chelton This is vintage King, with the suspense slow, savored, and inexorable, with all the little familiar and ironic touches King is master of. Creed, for example, pays for his son's funeral with a MasterCard. Possibly the best thing about the book is that the ending is inevitable and known almost instinctively early in the book, but the reader simply cannot help finding out how Creed gets there, and breath is held almost the entire way. King fans will love it. . . . A great read for cold winter nights.
Library Journal In this BBC dramatization of King's (Wizard and Glass, Audio Reviews, LJ 2/15/98) 1983 best seller, Dr. Louis Creed moves his ideal family from congested, urban Chicago to the rural simplicity of Ludlow, ME. His property sits near a long-established pet burial ground and a mysterious Indian burial ground from which the dead can be raised. The program effectively draws us into the characters' world: marriage and family, then shock, grief and madness as we explore the nature and mystery of death. Presenting a multivoiced dramatization rather than a reading of the novel, the actors work together, with added music and sound effects, to create King's macabre world. Recommended.--Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA
The Christian Century - Mary Helene Rosenbaum [The author] uses religious motifs and sentiments for atmospheric effect, but nothing of Christianity (or Judaism) comes near the hearts of his characters. The result is a blurring of focus, a loss of gravitational center. . . .This lack of focus, together with metaphysical loose ends trailing throughout the book, leaves the reader unsatisfied. . . . King is too powerful a writer to go on indefinitely slinging his ink in cinematic verbal effects to no purpose. He has shown an acute understanding of human fears; if he can move towardan equally profound apprehension of our hopes, he may yet write a book that transcends its genre in the manner of all true art.
Pittsburgh Press Unrelenting, convincing...awesome power...his best yet!
