There’s a lot of concern these days about the inability of some readers to separate depiction from endorsement (or biography!) in fiction, and I agree it’s troubling, but I experienced some relief during my reread of Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, where he observes, of a story that opens with the villain killing a dog:

“If one is to measure success by reader response, the opening scene of The Dead Zone (my first number-one hardcover bestseller) was one of my most successful ever. Certainly it struck a raw nerve; I was deluged with letters, most of them protesting my outrageous cruelty to animals. I wrote back to these folks, pointing out the usual things: (a) Greg Stillson wasn’t real; (b) the dog wasn’t real; (c) I myself had never in my life put the boot to one of my pets, or anyone else’s. I also pointed out what might have been a little less obvious--it was important to establish, right up front, that Gregory Ammas Stillson was an extremely dangerous man...”

Some readers have always been pretty obtuse, it seems.