Book Review
Title: Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Genre: Paranormal, Horror
Rating: 4.75 Stars
Salem’s lot had an interesting opening with an unnamed man and boy travelling to Mexico. There the boy enters the church and confesses things, the Priest with an interpreter asks the man for clarification and he explains that it was all true. The Priest asks the man if he knows what he has done to Jerusalem’s Lot commonly referred to as Salem’s Lot and he says he does before asking the boy to return to this place with him even though it is clear that Salem’s Lot which has now become a ghost town has scarred them both. The way the town became a ghost town has happened before to the town of Momson but something seems off about the way people left and refuse to talk about the place. We are then introduced to Ben Mears who is returning to the still inhabited town of Salem’s Lot where he lived for four years as a child after the death of his wife, Miranda. Very quickly after arriving he meets Susan Norton who follows his writing career and the pair hit it off. However, Ben wanted to buy the old Marsten House, which is rumoured to be haunted but it has already been sold although the estate agent refuses to tell Ben who bought it and this might be a connection to why the town is deserted now.
Through the next 50 or so pages we are introduced to a variety of the residents of Salem’s Lot and the lives they live which aren’t great in some cases like a 17 year old mother that beats her baby and an old drunk hung up on his landlady. However, the most interesting parts here are the death of a local man’s dog in a particularly brutal fashion and the sale of Marsten House. The Marsten House was sold to two business partners a year before along with the old laundromat which they are planning to use as a business location. The names of the business partners sound familiar and given that a lot of King’s books are interconnected, it is making me think there are strong connection between Salem’s Lot and Needful Things. While there are strange things going on in Salem’s Lot there is nothing sinister until a little boy goes missing while walking with his brother one night. For days they search for the boy unable to find him and when the brother dies in hospital after being admitted for shock and they can find nothing wrong with him, it is beginning to seem like something or someone is hunting in Salem’s Lot and the newcomers to town being Ben and the owners of the Marsten House immediately come under suspicion. Ben is insulted that he has come under suspicion for the boy’s disappearance when he has been helping the police look for him but he understands that it needs to be done and when his girlfriend asks him about it he says honestly that he believes the boy is dead. She does end up confessing her love for Ben which makes sense given how their relationship has been progressing but it didn’t fit the tone of the novel right now which is getting darker by the minute but nothing substantial has happened yet.
After Danny’s death and funeral, we see things beginning to happen as Mike the grave digger feels someone or something watching him in the graveyard and he believes it is Danny. Obviously, this seems impossible but the next time we see Mike it is clear something is wrong with Salem’s Lot. Mike ends up breaking open Danny’s coffin and seeing his vision of what was inside was real as if it was projected into his mind, like something was controlling him. However, we switch briefly to see the friendship established between Ben and Matt as both have a love of books as one is a writer and the other is an English teacher. One night after having dinner with Ben, Matt ends up at the local bar where he runs into his former student Mike who claims he has been really unwell recently telling Matt all about it and Matt seems to sense something is really off with Mike and invites him to stay the night at his house. Due to his insomnia, Matt doesn’t sleep and hears Mike talking to someone and letting them in through the window followed by a child’s laugh. Matt noticed puncture wounds on Mike’s neck and instantly thought of vampires as it is common in literature and he puts the pieces together but an unknown terror grips him and prevents him from entering the guest room where Mike is staying. Around four in the morning he calls the bordering house where Ben is staying telling him to come to his house and to bring a crucifix which he does. Upon getting Matt explains everything despite how bizarre it seems and Ben heads up to the room where he finds Mike seemingly asleep but upon closer inspection they realise he isn’t breathing and that he is dead despite how lifelike he looks right now. However, the puncture marks that Matt saw have disappeared which is also common in literature but Ben believes the story as Matt has no reason to lie and nothing to gain from Mike’s death. They decide that it definitely has something to do with the new occupants of the Marsten House and decide to put them a welcome visit with Ben’s girlfriend that night to see if there is anything strange going on up there but this is the first time vampires have been mentioned in the novel, while this isn’t confirmed yet there is definitely someone with the abilities to control the minds of others roaming around in Salem’s Lot and it is definitely going to get really interesting going forward.
Matt and Ben plan together to go up to the Marsten House and plan to take Susan with them to find out if there is something going on up there. However, Ben ends up in the hospital after fighting with Susan’s ex-boyfriend and he tells her to go to Matt and that he will explain everything to her which she does. During her time at Matt’s home where he explains everything they hear someone in the house and Matt goes to investigate, he ends up confronting Mike who has risen from the dead like he and Ben suspected but they survive the encounter. Matt shortly after has a heart attack which lands him in the hospital with Ben but they are both still alive. Susan is struggling to come to terms with everything because she is afraid but Matt and Ben support her through it. We also more about the sordid history of Salem’s lot as more deaths happen within the town. The victim this time is a baby named Randy and the darkness over the time seems to be growing by the day. As more people die and more bodies go missing the evidence of vampires seems to be growing and the trio even manage to convince Doctor Cody to exhume the body of Danny. Every body apart from Danny’s is missing so the doctor agrees but more people are beginning to believe that something is wrong with their town. The pace of the novel is definitely picking up now and I can’t wait to see how the town became deserted and I need to know who the man and boy were from the beginning of the novel as I am beginning to suspect that the older man might be Ben. That being said, King definitely knows how to build tension and atmosphere in his novels and I am looking forward to the second half of Salem’s Lot.
Ben and Jimmy head over to sit with Marjorie’s body to see if she awakens and when she does she attacks Jimmy. A fight ensues between them but the others have come prepared and get the upper hand on Marjorie before she disappears. They make sure Jimmy is ok and decide they have to inform the police that the bodies are disappearing even if they can’t tell them the whole truth. However, the police know something is going on in the town but can’t dig any further into Ben and Jimmy because he doesn’t think they are lying because they have committed a crime but because they are scared. While this is happening Susan is at the Marsten House where she meets Mark, Danny’s friend and a young boy of only 12 but he has also figured out that vampires are roaming the town and it is connected to the house. The pair enter but are quickly attacked and restrained by Straker. He takes Susan to the cellar for Barlow, his master and leaves Mark tied up for later, however, Mark is a smart and resourceful young man and quickly free himself and subdues Straker before fleeing the house. Later that night Susan comes to him as a vampire and he knows there is nothing he can do for her now except possibly seek out Ben Mears and I have a feeling he might be the young boy from the beginning of the novel. Mark does seek out Ben who thanks to Matt has also recruited Father Callahan but when he learns of Susan’s demise he wants to attack immediately. The others convince him to think smartly and they form a plan where they gather everything they could possibly need to face a vampire and what sort of dangers they will be facing before making a move on Marsten House. However, during this time they realise not only is Straker still alive but he knows what they are planning to do so they have to move carefully now to avoid falling into any traps he may have set since a lot of the town population has now been turned into vampires. We are getting close to the climax of the novel now and I can’t wait to see the showdown at Marsten House and what causes the town to end up deserted in the first place and where this could potentially leave both Mark and Ben if they are the two people mentioned at the beginning of the novel.
Now that the existence of the vampires has been confirmed and the main set of characters have been building their small resistance, we can feel that the climax of the novel is near. As more and more of the town is turned into vampires the small team of Mark, Ben, Matt, Jimmy and Father Callahan aren’t sure they can take them all on alone but they do agree that the mastermind Barlow needs to be dealt with but he is cunning. He outsmarts them first by killing Straker and targeting Mark’s parents. While he does have Father Callahan there with him both of his parents die and the Father takes on Barlow alone, it is clear that something happens to Father Callahan but he doesn’t seem to have been turned like the rest but he leaves the town and the others to fend for themselves. Jimmy is the next to go as he falls into a trap laid by Barlow and once again Mark manages to escape and he is quickly followed by Matt who has another heart attack in the hospital and dies, meaning on Ben and Mark are left. Mark figured out where Barlow was hiding now and they do kill him but the others are still roaming the town but they don’t have the manpower or strength to take them on. After discussing with some of the few human residents of the town, Ben realises the best thing for them both is to run and hope they stay ahead of the vampires for the rest of their lives. They do just this but Ben does return briefly to bury Jimmy before leaving Salem’s Lot once and for all. After he leaves we get some snapshots of the vampires wiping out the remainder of the town and drawing more people into Salem’s Lot but they will be looking for a new hunting ground soon. The final section of the book is an extended epilogue hopefully taking back around to the first chapter where the two men presumably Ben and Mark are going to return to Salem’s Lot.
The climax of Salem’s Lot and the epilogue were interesting but it felt like the big showdown came a little early and nothing really followed it after that. The epilogue isn’t even an epilogue but more of a prologue as it details the history of the darkness that has plagued Salem’s Lot for centuries and where it came from originally which was interesting and it seemed to almost draw parallels to Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. However, for a novel about vampires which have always had a sensual element to them, King’s novel lacked that. While the sensualism of the vampires is hinted at it is overshadowed for their horrific nature. While I understand why King made this choice it felt a little cheap as in many works depicting vampires, Dracula etc. it is the sensual nature of the vampire that draws its victims in and how they twist the victims mind before eventually feeding from them. Overall, Salem’s Lot was an amazing, fast paced, gory novel about vampires and their dark nature but it just lacked that little something that would have made this and outstanding five star read for me personally.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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