Bangor

Bangor is the largest city near the town of Ludlow and functions as the primary urban center in the novel, the place where the most consequential medical, mortuary, and transportation events of the story unfold. It is the city of the Eastern Maine Medical Center, where Victor Pascow's body is taken for autopsy and where Norma Crandall is treated after her heart attack; it is the location of the Brookings-Smith Mortuary, where Gage Creed's funeral viewing is held and where Louis Creed fights with his father-in-law Irwin Goldman; it is the site of Mount Hope Cemetery, where Gage is buried and from which Louis exhumes his body; and it is the location of the Bangor International Airport, from which Rachel and Ellie fly to Chicago and to which Rachel returns in her desperate drive home. Bangor is also where Louis checks into the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge under a false name before his grave-robbing expedition, and where he purchases his digging tools at Watson's Hardware in Brewer, just across the Penobscot River.

Medical and Mortuary Center

Bangor is the setting for the most critical medical and mortuary events in the novel. After Victor Pascow is struck by a car on the university campus, he is brought to the Student Medical Center in Orono, but his body is taken to the Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) in Bangor for autopsy. Louis calls the EMMC morgue the day after Pascow's death and learns from the pathology clerk that Pascow's body has already been flown back to his parents in New Jersey. Later, when Norma Crandall suffers a heart attack on Halloween night, Louis administers CPR and sends for a Bangor MedCu ambulance, which takes her to the EMMC; she is treated there and eventually moved to a semiprivate room downstairs, a good sign of her recovery. The Brookings-Smith Mortuary in Bangor handles both Norma's funeral arrangements and, tragically, Gage's. Jud Crandall calls the mortuary from his home the day Norma dies, making arrangements with calm efficiency, specifying that he wants her embalmed, dressed, and cosmeticized with a light layer, and that the coffin will be closed during the funeral but open during visiting hours. He arranges for her burial at Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor, where he and Norma bought plots in 1951. Gage's funeral viewing is held in the East Room of the same mortuary, where the fight between Louis and Irwin Goldman occurs, culminating in Goldman falling onto Gage's coffin and snapping its latch.

Transportation Hub and Gateway

Bangor International Airport (BIA) serves as the primary transportation hub for the Creed family. Louis drives his family to BIA on the day before Thanksgiving to see them off on their trip to Chicago, and he watches their Delta 727 pull away from the rampway. After Gage's death, Louis again takes Rachel and Ellie to BIA, this time to send them to Chicago with the Goldmans; Ellie has a nightmare on the plane and Rachel, after arriving in Chicago, becomes so alarmed that she books a return flight to Bangor that same evening. Rachel's return journey involves a complex series of flights from Chicago to LaGuardia, then to Boston's Logan Airport, where she misses her connecting flight to Portland and instead rents a car and drives the entire distance from Boston to Ludlow, passing through Bangor on her way. The Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge on the Odlin Road near the airport is where Louis checks in under the name Dee Dee Ramone, paying cash, before his night of grave-robbing; he eats a big tasteless dinner in the dining room, watches eight sitcoms, and then drives to Pleasantview Cemetery to dig up his son's body.

Site of Gage's Burial and Exhumation

Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor is where Gage William Creed is buried on a rainy afternoon in May. The graveside service is brief and nonsectarian; the funeral director reads from Matthew, and Louis notices a payloader parked over the hill, waiting to fill the grave after the mourners leave. Louis orders a grave liner instead of a sealing vault, a choice that Jud Crandall later interprets as a sign that Louis is considering disinterring the body. The night after the funeral, Louis drives to Pleasantview Cemetery, climbs over the wrought-iron fence using a tree branch, and digs up Gage's grave. He finds the coffin in a thin puddle of water, opens it, and removes his son's body, wrapping it in a tarpaulin. He then drives back to Ludlow with the body in the passenger seat of his Honda Civic, beginning the journey to the Micmac burying ground beyond the Pet Sematary.

Narrative Significance

Bangor is the urban counterpoint to the rural, isolated setting of Ludlow, and it is the place where the novel's most public and institutional events occur: the medical response to death, the mortuary rituals, the legal burial, and the transportation that enables the family's movements. It is also the place where Louis's private, forbidden act of grave-robbing takes place, a transgression that occurs within the city's boundaries but is hidden from its institutions. The city's hospitals, mortuaries, and airport represent the rational, bureaucratic, and social structures that attempt to contain and manage death, structures that Louis ultimately rejects in his desperate, irrational quest to reverse his son's death. Bangor is the gateway through which the Creed family enters and leaves the story, and it is the place where the novel's central act of defiance against the natural order is physically prepared.