Having read his first published novel, Carrie (check the review HERE), it is now time to move on to his next story of terror and trouble: Salem’s Lot!
I have always had a rough peripheral understanding of Stephen King and his books, knowing roughly what they are about and no much more. Over the years, this has changed and I have learned more about the specifics. However, my knowledge of this novel has always consisted of little more than the fact it is King’s take on a vampire story. That alone has prompted me to keep pushing it off of my TBR pile
Media likes to latch onto to specific phases and topics, running them down to the point of nauseating levels of being overdone. We witness this with stories such as zombies (The Walking Dead, Warm Bodies, and many other examples), ghosts, and the infamous vampires. When most of us think of relatively modern interpretations of Vampires, we think of series such as Twilight or Vampire Dairies.
I don’t want to take shots at those series by any means, as everything has its fans. However, I was hoping to avoid similar tropes and ideas being present in Salem’s Lot, so I always procrastinated reading it for that reason
However, now having read the novel, I am glad to say that the plot and storytelling harkens back to the traditional types of tales that involves these bloodsucking fiends. It is impossible not to notice the various familiar threads present between this novel and Bram Stoker’s classic tale of Dracula. And that is an amazing thing.
Salem’s Lot (or ‘salem’s lot, althought I will stick to the former spelling) is a horrific tale of an ancient evil preying upon a small town who is blissfully unaware of the danger in their midst. Much like Stoker’s tale, the only people aware of the threat are a seemingly ragtag group of citizens who must put their lives on the line in order to protect the wider community.
I criticized King in my review of Carrie for his time spent on focusing on the side characters who live in the small town the reader found themselves in. In Carrie’s case, I found it to be unneeded and took away from the story due to the fact the novel was short enough as it is, and the storytelling should have been a bittttt more streamlined. That being said, King utilizes the same writing style in this novel, and it just works.
This novel is much longer, and thus the several shifts of perspective are justified and help make the longer story much more enjoyable. Whether it was time spent on characters such as Ben, Mark, Susan, Father Callahan, or any of the smaller characters, it helped flesh out this small town and make the losses much more visceral when they happened.
Speaking of characters, I loved almost all of the main players in this story, and highly enjoyed how individualized they were. I’m also a sucker for a ragtag group of characters coming together, so when King brought together an out-of-place author, an imaginative child, a priest with a tested faith, and similar characters, I was invested.
One small issue I had with the story was how late some characters came into the spotlight, mainly Father Callahan. He is implied to be one if the main characters on the book’s description, but it’s takes around 3/4ths of the novel for him to be properly introduced. I feel like his struggles and personal issues would have benefitted from an earlier introduction.
Overall, I loved how fleshed out this story was, and how impactful the deaths were. I was not expecting things to go downhill so fast (as the novel has a sort of a slow start), but once the action started I couldn’t stop reading!
Final Score: 8.5/10
Salems Lot is a wonderfully fresh yet homage-ridden story about Vampires, small towns, and the bloodshed that comes when they are mixed. The town itself is described in such a familiar way that makes you feel right at home after you get far enough into the novel. It has a noticeably slow start to it, but an avalanche of action occurs right when it is about to lose your interest. I enjoyed this novel and will be soon posting a review on my re-read of The Shining, so stay tuned!
As always, don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts on this book, either on here, Instagram, or email (info @theliterategryphon.com).