#Spooktober #CastleRock #BookReview ‘The Sun Dog’ by Stephen King

About the book…

The dog is loose again. It is not sleeping. It is not lazy. It’s coming for you.

Kevin Delavan wants only one thing for his fifteenth birthday: a Polaroid Sun 660. There’s something wrong with his gift, though. No matter where Kevin Delevan aims the camera, it produces a photograph of an enormous, vicious dog. In each successive picture, the menacing creature draws nearer to the flat surface of the Polaroid film as if it intends to break through. When old Pop Merrill, the town’s sharpest trader, gets wind of this phenomenon, he envisions a way to profit from it. But the Sun Dog, a beast that shouldn’t exist at all, turns out to be a very dangerous investment.

First published as one of a quartet named ‘Four Past Midnight’, ‘The Sun Dog’ 

is part of the Hodder Books stand alone re-issues of novellas which, prior to now, have not been readily available on their own. With shiny new covers, these are lovely little books which are a great read when you only have room in your bag for something thin, especially given King’s propensity for writing massive books (not complaining, I love a big book but my shoulders? Not so much!)

This, according to the intro, is one of a planned Castle Rock trilogy, alongside ‘Needful Things’ and ‘The Dark Half’, which was a tad optimistic, as even after Needful Things came out, he has continued to visit that little town which links and links again to his wider universe.

A quintessential King tale, almost a reprieve after the darkness of the preceding The Library Policeman, this is the tale of an average, every day birthday, where Kevin Delevan receives the object of his desire, a Polaroid Sun 660 camera.

Except, this being Castle Rock, this is no ordinary camera.

No matter what you point it at, it takes a completely different picture. And inexplicable image of a dog, facing away from the camera, with a non descript fence in the background.

Disappointed and feeling a bit ripped off, Kevin tries with different film, gives it to his dad and his sister, and yet the image doesn’t change.

Yet, when the pics are labelled and put together, they appear like a flick book from the olden days (kids, ask your parents about amusing themselves with cigarette papers and dancing stick men, kept us quiet for hours!)

The dog is slowly moving. More details are revealed.

And like so many of King’s stories, there is a bad guy lurking in the background, he, Pop Merrill, owner of the Emporium Galorium and erstwhile  Ace Merrill, town bad guy and scourge of ‘The Body’

Pop’s angle is a different one, he lends money at extortionate rates, stores it in old tin cans (not trusting banks) and sells a wide variety of what could be defined as ‘antiques’ and knicknacks.

Kevin takes the camera to Pop, almost as if it was a pre-destined event, he shouldn’t really know Pop, and his father, having borrowed money from him a long time ago, tells him the story of how long and hard he had to work to pay Pop back. It was not the capital that killed you, it was the compound interest. And this is the theme running through the novella, Pop is not aware that he has stored up so much bad moral credit amongst the good people of Castle County, and that interest is piling up. And it is about to be paid off in blood.

Taking his camera to Pop, Kevin rationalises that Pop could fix it, or work out if it is some kind of joke machine, a trick camera or such like. What Pop does is investigate neither of these things. He buys his own version and swaps it for Kevin’s a compulsion driving him to do this. And when he fools the Delevan’s into thinking he has broken it, he brings about his own dark and wicked punishment.

The dog in the camera means to draw blood.

If it weren’t for his constant pics of Molly aka the Thing Of Evil on Twitter, you might think that King does not like dogs!
What I really enjoyed about this is that The Sun Dog owes the reader no explanation, the appearance of the dog, why it has targeted Kevin…there is no rational explanation, it just is.

It could be a version of an American black shuck, I kind of like to think that it is. The contrast between the flat 2-D images, the magic of the developing picture which so enraptures the Delevans, is swapped for a fear in 3-D as the dog comes closer and closer to the border of the picture.

Wil it break free from whatever world it exists in?

Will it bite?

How many has it killed before now?

None of these questions matter or can be explained, it just needs to be dealt with, and fast.

It is story which King is so good at telling, the ordinary man (Kevin) and an ordinary occurrence (a family party) leading to a most unexpected happening ( a haunting). At once thrilling, pretty scary and with a lightness of touch to the narration which borders a comical representation of the all American family, this is a decent story on which to wrap up the Four Past Midnight quartet.

In an age of filters, deletion and disappearing posts, the permeance of a printed picture, such as a Polaroid, capturing a truth which is , today, so sanitised by digital cameras, creates a sweet nostalgia for reels of film found in the back of a kitchen drawer, hopefully sent off in a pre-paid envelope to be developed, with no idea what was on them, and when it was used.

Links to other King works-

There are too many Castle Rock references to link each seperate one, please look for my blog posts with the #CastleRock hashtag for those individual stories or books.

Pg 33- Shawshank Prison central location of Rita Haworth and Shawshank Redemption, as well as being mentioned multiple times in other books.

Pg 42-Lewsiton is the location of ‘Carrie’ as well as the location of Kingdom Hospital, as feature in ‘The Journals Of Eleanor Druse:My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident’

Pg 54-Norris Ridgewick and Alan Clutterbuck appear in ‘The Dark Half’ ,‘Needful Things’ and ‘Gerald’s Game’

Pg 60-Tareytons are the brand of cigarette favoured by Lily Cavanagh, Queen of the B’s in ‘The Talisman’

Pg 62- Polly Chalmers and Alan Pangborn appear in ‘Needful Things’

Pg 85-Juniper Hill Asylum is where characters like Henry Bowers were sectioned

Pg 93-A mention of Oatley, the location of the infamous Oatley Tap and Tunnel, also from ‘The Talisman’

Pg 118-Joe Camber and his son’s dog ‘Cujo’ come to mind as Pop looks at the Polaroid snaps

About the author…

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, ‘Mr Mercedes’, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both ‘Mr Mercedes’ and ‘End Of Watch’ received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel ‘Sleeping Beauties‘ with his son Owen King, and many of King’s books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘, ‘Gerald’s Game’ and ‘It‘.

King was the recipient of America’s prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine

Links-https://www.stephenking.com/

Twitter @StephenKing

@HodderBooks