Simply taken as a contemporary vampire novel, 'Salem's Lot is great fun to read, and has been very influential in the horror genre. But it's also a sly piece of social commentary. As King said in 1983, "In 'Salem's Lot, the thing that really scared me was not vampires, but the town in the daytime, the town that was empty, knowing that there were things in closets, that there were people tucked under beds, under the concrete pilings of all those trailers. And all the time I was writing that, the Watergate hearings were pouring out of the TV.... Howard Baker kept asking, 'What I want to know is, what did you know and when did you know it?' That line haunts me, it stays in my mind.... During that time I was thinking about secrets, things that have been hidden and were being dragged out into the light." Sounds quite a bit like the idea behind his 1998 novel of a Maine hamlet haunted by unsightly secrets, Bag of Bones. --Fiona Webster

Product Description
Stephen King's second novel,'Salem's Lot, is the story of a mundane townunder siege from the forces of darkness. Considered one of the most terrifying vampire novels ever written, it cunningly probes the shadows of the human heart -- and the insular evils of small-town America.

Literally hundreds of readers have already reviewed this book, so I am sure anything I say is just a rehash of what has already been said. I will mention the fact that this novel is quite different from Carrie, its immediate predecessor. Where the events of that book were somewhat disjointed, this story unfolds quite smoothly. The characters in this book are much more "real" than those in Carrie. Rather than jumping from one viewpoint to another, King's prose now allows itself to take root and grow, yielding a bumper crop of complex, realistic, knowable characters. While I felt as if I were watching the events taking place in Carrie, I felt much more like a character myself in 'Salem's Lot. If anyone out there has yet to read Stephen King, I would recommend reading this novel as your introduction to his work. The blood and gore is there, as it should be, but most of the horror is below the surface, always present and ready to spring out whenever King's imagination bids it to do so. It is a wonderful reading experience. I can picture Stephen King saying to his readers the exact same thing that the vampire says to Father Callahan: "Taste my communion." Millions of us have tasted it, and we have been held under the sway of our master ever since.


Illustrated Edition Literary Equivalent of SE DVD   November 8, 2005
 20 out of 20 found this review helpful

The Illustrated Edition of 'Salem's Lot is set up much like a 'Special Edition' DVD. The book boasts over 50 pages of 'deleted or alternative' scenes, a new introduction, and two previously published short stories ("One for the Road" and "Jerusalem's Lot"). The short stories don't have much to do with the characters or plot of the novel but certainly flesh out the 'special features' that the Illustrated Edition has to offer. If you've never read 'Night Shift' (or maybe even if you have, and it's been awhile), then they'll serve as an added treat.

If one is a fan of Stephen King, this is a must own. A somewhat already infamous passage (mentioned by King before) where one character is offed by a gang of rats in a basement is restored in all its deliciously gory glory. While we're on the topic, the bonus passages are NOT inserted into the text of the novel but offered in a later section. This is not a 'director's cut' of the book but set up like a DVD where one can flip to and peruse the deleted sections if one chooses to do so. It's the same novel as before, so if you're looking for something completely new a la Revised version of 'The Stand', this may not be what you're looking for. However, if you are interested into further delving into the world of 'Salem's Lot or interested in what King and/or his editors decided to take out from the original text, then you'll be in Stephen King heaven.

The photographs are stark, chilling, and beautiful... though sparse throughout the book. Basically, they seperate the sections and serve as covers.

As for the novel itself, it is both a compelling and entertaining read. As mentioned in the Amazon review, all the King staples are here (i.e. small town, secrets, and darkness pervading the ordinariness of life). I read this when I was probably way too young to have read it, and it scared me for weeks and turned me into a King junkie for life. If you're a King fan, horror fan, or just looking for a great read, you cannot go wrong with 'Salem's Lot.


You're simply the best... better than all the rest...   November 25, 2001
 19 out of 23 found this review helpful

Stephen King's second book... starring the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot and the pervasive evil that comes to inhabit it. The town knows horror, of course. Years before, a man named Hubie Marsten (prisoner to psychosexual disorders he can't control) committed a murder, and now his house stands empty, seeming to watch over the town. The Marsten House becomes the symbol of evil, a central place from which terror and death resonate.

Introduced to the town are three strangers: Ben Mears, a writer who lived there as a child, Mark Petrie, a kid obsessed with monsters and horror movies, and Mr. Barlow, a mysterious figure who opens up a shop in town (a precursor to Leland Gaunt in Needful Things?). Though Barlow doesn't make an appearance in the novel until more than halfway through, his assistant, Mr. Straker, takes care of his business while Barlow takes care of the town's business.

Following the arrival of these strangers, a young boy is found dead. The scene at the funeral in which the boy's father throws himself at the coffin screaming for his son to wake up is perhaps King's most gut-wrenching. Then, when darkness falls on the town, the boy emerges from his coffin and his father's wish becomes prophecy - though not the way he would have wished.

Death invades the town. Worse than death, Salem's Lot is gripped by the ravages of the undead. By the time Ben Mears, Mark Petrie and their friends discover the truth, the town is almost beyond hope. Their only chance is to destroy Barlow, burn the town, and escape.

The novel begins and ends with Ben and Mark leaving to once again visit the Lot, as they have discovered the vampire threat hasn't vanished. Salem's Lot ends with a cliffhanger that will probably never be balanced. What we have, though, is one of King's most intense and scary books. After the steady buildup, the moments of terror come in one-two knockout style, and King's mastery of vampire myths and legends is first class, especially the way he infuses them into modern-day society. The fact that the major villain stays behind the scenes for the first half of the novel only adds to the excitement and anxiety.

Salem's Lot is not just a vampire novel. It is a novel of pure and unbridled fear, a truly scary book. It is about small towns and the nature of evil. It is about love found, love lost, and the persistance of hope. And, well, it has those vampires...


Vampires? Who Said Anything About Vampires?   October 25, 1999
 16 out of 16 found this review helpful

This is King's best book. I read it fifteen years ago, when I was the last student still living in my gothic dormitory at Yale. It scared the hell out of me. Too bad, but by now, almost everyone knows that 'Salem's Lot is a vampire novel. I consider that a spoiler. What was so frightening for me the first time through was not quite knowing what was wrong with this town. Much is made of the old vacant Marsten house, and I thought I was reading a haunted house story. It's not until well into the book that King makes any overt reference to vampires, and when he finally does, it is with a sense of both discovery and inevitability that the reader learns the true nature of what is afflicting the town. Why, of course it's vampires. What else could it be but but vampires?

As for the book being a ripoff of Dracula--well, yes. In the same sense that the movies Blade or The Hunger rip off Dracula, or that the novel Mary Reilly is a ripoff of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They are retellings. The Dracula thing isn't much more than an imaginative launching point. As someone who's actually read Stoker's Dracula, I think it's an important Gothic novel and preFreudian allegory -- but not all that scary. Not nearly as frightening as 'Salem's Lot.

King is at the top of his game here, and he portrays people who make sense, who belong in this story, and whose character is their destiny.

For all his prolific output, I wish King would do a sequel. This remains his most elegant, most successful, taut and transporting novel.