David Fisher - The Pack

[andydecker]

David Fisher - The Pack (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976, 249 pages)

Lydia Rosier

In the August heat they frolicked on the beaches, fetched sticks, played with the children.

Then the summer dwellers left, abandoning them to the island's harsh winter. Ravenous hunger and violent rage have brought them together under a cunning, ferocious leader.

Man has betrayed his best friend--now the dogs will have their day. It's a bitter winter, and the dogs of summer have grown hungry ... and vicious!

Re-issued by Valancourt in their Paperbacks from Hell edition this is a typical Animals Attack novel when the topic was still fresh. David Fisher sold this first novel to Putnam's and had the luck that it was filmed as a so-so movie. Fisher went on and published 80 books, among them some bestsellers and William Shatner's autobiography. He never did horror again.

Still this is a taut and suspenseful novel. Larry and his pill-popping bored ex-model wife and two small kids visit his parents in winter. The parents live on Burrows Island, a small island on the Atlantic coast without any infrastructure. A pack of by tourists abandoned dogs haunts the isle, but the few elderly citizens don't care much, as these are only dogs. They will die of hunger in the winter, so what? Larry wants to convince his parents to relocate to New York, which of course the father doesn't want to hear a word about. He wants to day in his home, where Larry and his brother Kenny, the in Larry's eyes irresponsible vietnam vet,  have grown up. His wish is fulfilled, the dogs of different races have formed a pack, led by a big shepard. Out of hunger and rage they start killing and eating the islanders, Larry has to watch how his father is ripped to pieces. Now he and his family are holed up in their snowed in house while the pack for unfathomble reasons starts a siege. As a storm is ravaging the gulf, help won't come. And the dogs are relentless.

At 249 pages this is a very well written book with solid believable characterisations and surprisingly but not excessive bloody action. What can go wrong does go wrong, and Fisher delivers some good twists. A short, throwaway scene of a woman in a car attacked by the shepard while the kids watch seems to give Cujo a big wink. I don't know if King ever acknowledged Fisher.

The new Valencourt edition has the usual nice foreword by Will Erickson and the original cover.