Product Description

Thousands of miles away from the small township of 'Salem's Lot, two terrified people, a man and a boy, still share the secrets of those clapboard houses and tree-lined streets. They must return to 'Salem's Lot for a final confrontation with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #333231 in Books
• Published on: 1982-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Review
'An incredibly gifted writer, whose writing, like Truman Capote's, is so fluid that you often forget that you're reading' -- Guardian 'A writer of excellence...King is one of the most fertile storytellers of the modern novel...brilliantly done' -- The Sunday Times 'Splendid entertainment...Stephen King is one of those natural storytellers...getting hooked is easy' -- Frances Fyfield, Express

About the Author
Stephen King is the bestselling author of more than thirty books of which the most recent are THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON and HEARTS IN ATLANTIS. He lives with his wife, the novelist Tabitha King, in Bangor, Maine.

Customer Reviews

Small-Town Feel Is True Genius Of This Novel
Unlike most hard-core Stephen King fans, I have been reading his books in no particular order...just whichever one I can get my hands on next. Thus, I happened to read the entire Dark Tower series penned by King before I happened onto this novel. In that series, I learned more about Father Callahan, who was first introduced in this book. By reading things so disjointed, I figured that "Salem's Lot" was just a book about vampires who had to be expelled from a small town. Once I dove into this text, however, I realized that the true genius of this novel has nothing to do with the vampires themselves, but more so how King sets up their appearance.

The biggest thing that surprised me about this book was that actual vampires do not appear until the last 100 or so pages of the novel. They are hinted at many times earlier, but never fully exposed/explained. However, at least to me, that is where King makes this story so scary. Pretty much the entire first half of the book is devoted to trying to capture the small-town feel of Jerusalem's Lot but examining its citizens, their relationships, and the day-to-day events of the little town. Thus, when the great evil is unearthed towards the end of the novel, it makes it all the scarier that the evil is coming from such an out-of-the-way place, a type of place usually reserved for a slow, uncomplicated life. That, not the vampires, is the most interesting theme of the novel.

Of course, in typical King fashion, the characters are also very well-written and interesting, thus easy to root for (or against, in some cases) as they fight to extinguish the evil in small-town America.

So, although "Salem's Lot" was first published way back in 1975, it is still a thrilling read even today, as small-towns still exist all over America...small towns where he feel safe and never think anything can hurt is. In King's universe, that is not so, which is what makes this book so frightful.

Vampires are creeping in!
"'Salem's Lot" is the second novel written by Stephen King. At that time to write a novel took him around two years. He wasn't as prolific as he now is and his "writing formula" was new to him and to readers.
I first read this book in its Spanish translation, when it was just edited and enjoyed it a lot. Before reviewing it I carefully reread it and still receive the jolts of King's unique style, even knowing beforehand what was going to happen.

King took vampires myth and situated it not in a far land, not far in the past, but in our time in a little Maine's town.
The author takes his time to depict every character minutely. He draws the general picture of everyday life in a small town. In Spanish we have a saying: "Small town, big inferno" and that's exactly what happens in Salem's Lot.
When the reader is well acquainted with the town's people, horror starts to creep little by little, trapping first one, then another folk, putting the village under siege.
A small heterogeneous group tries to combat evil with all their strength. Will they succeed? Well you must read the book to know it.

If you are a fan on horror novels you will not be disappointed. King IS the best horror storyteller of the present times.
His trade mark is: being one of the "good people" is not enough to keep the character safe, so the reader keeps wondering "who will be next?"
It is great book for lovers of the genre and general public too!

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

A decent classic vampire yarn
When Ben Mears, a successful writer, returns to his hometown of Salem's Lot, he has on only one mission: to finally deal with the monster of his youth. As a teenager he entered the abandoned Marsten House on a dare and was confronted with the spirit of Hubert Marsten, a `30s gangster who committed suicide in that same house. By writing a novel about this doomed place, Ben hopes to finally get rid of the images that haunt his dreams. He plans to stay in the Marsten House, but is surprised to find that it has been sold. Unbeknownst to Ben the new owner has a strong link with the monster of his nightmares.

Not only is `Salem's Lot an extensive tribute to Dracula, one of greatest classic horror novels ever written, it is on its own also a decently structured yarn that has all the aspects of a classic. But this part of the homage is at the same time also its weakest point. At no point does the story offer any significant surprise or twist. It is all set-up according to a format that was innovative in Bram Stoker's era, but has lost much of its potency in our modern times. As such, the reader is able to simply predict the denouement based upon the number of pages that follows. At the same time I am afraid that people that are unfamiliar with the original Dracula might miss quite some of the poignant tongue-in-cheek humour that King has added in abundance to the story. Nevertheless `Salem's Lot has all the characteristics of an enjoyable vampire story.