Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King

 Cycle of the Werewolf

by Stephen King

This might be one of those rare instances in which the film adaptation is better than the original book.

Cycle of the Werewolf is about the small town of Tarker's Mills during its one-year struggle with a werewolf that has beset the town with a monthly killing. The book's structure is divided into months, from January to December on and around the full moon of each month, and is told in third person following one person's encounter with the beast in each chapter, with only a few recurring characters. The main one being a paraplegic ten-year-old boy named Marty Coslaw.

Several people are killed as the werewolf stalks the town. During the fourth of July Marty encounters the beast in his backyard, wounding it in the eye. No one else in the town believes Marty's story, but Marty knows that whoever has a missing eye is likely the beast. It turns out that someone in town does, in fact, wear an eye patch, and Marty starts sending letters to this man, a Baptist minister named Reverend Lester Lowe. At first the letters are anonymous, and then Marty begins signing his name to them. Marty's belief is that if his claims aren't true, the Reverend Lowe will speak to his parents about them. But he doesn't. Marty takes his story and his ideas to his uncle, the one person who doesn't treat him with kid gloves, and asks for the means to end the curse of Tarker's Mills. 

This is one instance in which I think Stephen King was a too concise with the story. I would have liked to have a more in-depth narrative for this one. It took seven chapters (and they're all very short) for Marty to come into the picture, and he only appears in three of the twelve chapters. His was the story expanded upon for the film Silver Bullet. But all of the characters could have been really interesting to follow in this story. This was a horror story, for sure. It was gory without much depth. The idea is good, but there wasn't enough exploration of the psychology of the premise, no deeper theme that I could pick up other than people are not always what they seem. That in itself is a good theme, but it wasn't explored deeply enough for me.

I have to give Cycle of the Werewolf 3 stars. It was too simple, but had a lot of potential. It could be seen as another metaphor for King's addictions at this time - a man turned into a monster by something seemingly innocuous. A man who is so overcome by his addictions that he is wrestling with himself. The innocent versus the beats within.