Pet Sematary
1983 novel by Stephen King
Pet Sematary is a 1983 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. It tells the story of a family moving to Maine and settling closer to a pet cemetery in the woods, which is home to a terrifying force that brings death and sorrow. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and adapted into two films: one in 1989 and another in 2019 as well as several spinoffs.
Background
In 1979, King was writer-in-residence at the University of Maine and the house his family was renting in Orrington, Maine, 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. 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. The first draft was completed in May 1979. In June 1983, King published a short story, "The Return of Timmy Baterman", in the program for the event "Satyricon II" (also known as "DeepSouthCon 21"); this was incorporated into Pet Sematary.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Pet Sematary” as 1983 novel by Stephen King. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as 1983 novel by Stephen King. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q742226. VIAF identifies the subject as 307972981. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1983, 1984, 1989 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pet Sematary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.