Book Review: LT's Theory of Pets

LT's Theory of Pets, by Stephen King

Source: Amazon.com

From the book (?) cover:

A Rare Live Stephen King Recording!
Stephen King delivers a haunting, heartfelt performance as he shares a story about the bonds between husbands, wives and pets. LT has a theory about pets, particularly his Siamese cat. It had been their cat not just his cat, but that was until he came home one day to a note on the fridge. His wife had left him. The cat stayed behind...
Recorded live at London's Royal Festival Hall, LT's Theory of Pets demonstrates yet again that Stephen King is a master storyteller.

The Review:

I am not aware, at the time of this review, whether the short story LT's Theory of Pets is even available in print, though I confess I didn't do a lot of looking. I am disappointed that the Amazon listing shows the audiobook version I listened to as being "abridged," and so must assume it is indeed in print somewhere.

The author, Stephen King / Source: lajohannesson.com

LT's Theory of Pets is classic Stephen King, though it lacks the supernatural element. But I have found in my experience that King often deals with macabre, but not necessarily other-worldly, horrors. This one concerns how people's pets tend to take after their owner's personalities. But in this case, the married couple in the story end up with each other's pets.

I'll save the punch line from LT's titular theory, as well as the part where the story turns dark, so as not to spoil the potential reading of the tale. I will say that LT's take on pets is pure pragmatism, and that the dark ending closes out a fairly humorous short story. This is no surprise, after all. It is Stephen King.

When I first heard the title of this work by King, the image I had was actually from an old Garfield comic book called "His Nine Lives."  This was a collection of Garfield humor, with one rather odd exception.  One of the stories contained a horror story of sorts, in which a little old lady's house cat is possessed by something evil and attacks its owner.  The imagery from that stuck with me over the years (I read the comic when I was a pre-teen), and came back when I decided to read this short story.  But the two have nothing in common, really. / Source: loseternautas.com

For my recommendation: I liked that the author narrated this telling of his story. The inflections and delivery were excellent. The story itself had humor, but with the typical King gravitous ending. There is of course some bad language, as well as the relating of violence (you don't see it, so to speak, but hear about it second-hand), and the brushing up against the subject of prostitution, with offhand comments about sex surrounding that. So not for kids, of course. But if you enjoy King's work, and especially if you are like me and prefer his short stories, then this one will definitely suit.

Learn more about LT's Theory of Pets, by Stephen King, on Amazon.com


The parting comment:


The name "L.T." reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Bart and Milhouse and the rest get turned into a "boy band" and are shilled out as a recruiting tool by the despicable Lieutenant L.T. Smash.  One of the cleverer episodes of the series, after it had (in this reviewer's opinion) passed it's prime.