'Salem's Lot [Hardcover]

Stephen King (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 1, 1990

Stephen King's second novel, the classic vampire bestseller 'SALEM'S LOT, tells the story of evil in small-town America.
 
'Salem's Lot is a small New England town with white clapboard houses, tree-lined streets, and solid church steeples. That summer in 'salem's Lot was a summer of homecoming and return; spring burned out and the land lying dry, crackling underfoot. Late that summer, Ben Mears returned to 'salem's Lot hoping to cast out his own devils and found instead a new, unspeakable horror.
 
A stranger had also come to the Lot, a stranger with a secret as old as evil, a secret that would wreak irreparable harm on those he touched and in turn on those they loved.
 
All would be changed forever: Susan, whose love for Ben could not protect her; Father Callahan, the bad priest who put his eroded faith to one last test; and Mark, a young boy who sees his fantasy world become reality and ironically proves the best equipped to handle the relentless nightmare of 'Salem's Lot.
 
This is a rare novel, almost hypnotic in its unyielding suspense, which builds to a climax of classic terror. You will not forget the town of 'salem's Lot nor any of the people who used to live here.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stephen King's second book, 'Salem's Lot (1975)--about the slow takeover of an insular hamlet called Jerusalem's Lot by a vampire patterned after Bram Stoker's Dracula--has two elements that he also uses to good effect in later novels: a small American town, usually in Maine, where people are disconnected from each other, quietly nursing their potential for evil; and a mixed bag of rational, goodhearted people, including a writer, who band together to fight that evil.

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Spine-tingling fiction at its best." --Grand Rapids Press

"A master storyteller." --The Los Angeles Times

"An unabashed chiller." --Austin American Statesman

“[The] most wonderfully gruesome man on the planet.” —USA Today
 
“A super exorcism...tremendous.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“A novel of chilling, unspeakable evil.” —Chattanooga Times
 
“[King is] . . . the guy who probably knows more about scary goings-on in confined, isolated places than anybody since Edgar Allan Poe.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
“Stephen King has built a literary genre of putting ordinary people in the most terrifying situations. . . . he’s the author who can always make the improbable so scary you'll feel compelled to check the locks on the front door.” —The Boston Globe
 
“Peerless imagination.” —The Observer (London)


From the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (April 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385007515
• ISBN-13: 978-0385007511
• Product Dimensions: 1.4 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (544 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

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#21 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#1 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror

#5 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction

#6 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#9 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#10 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

#1 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror

#5 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction

#6 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#9 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#10 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Illustrated Edition Literary Equivalent of SE DVD November 7, 2005

By Keith W. Johnson

Format:Hardcover

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.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Darkness November 26, 2003

By Gary F. Taylor HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Stephen King has always been regarded as more of a pop fiction writer than a literary author--but in 1975 he turned out a book which, although overshadowed by the massive success of his later work, will stand the test: 'SALEM'S LOT. Simple yet multi-layered, elegant yet grotesque, this is the book that shows what King can really do when he sets his mind to it.

The story opens with Ben Mears, an author who has come to his childhood home of 'Salem's Lot with the idea of writing a novel about the small town's "haunted house" of note. As he observes the town, he also becomes a part of it, meeting a young woman who might be more than a passing interest, making new friends and renewing old acquaintances. But there is something--indefinable. Something that is slowly going wrong in the town. And it is connected with the "haunted house" of his childhood memories.

King is clearly drawing from several sources for inspiration, most particularly Bram Stoker's DRACULA and Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, as well as from traditional vampire lore. But what he does with this story of a vampire infestation in a quiet New England town is completely original, peeling back the lives of the townfolk in layers and then showing their gradual corruption as the plague spreads.

'SALEM'S LOT is more subtle than most King novels. It builds with a deliberate slowness and gradually develops a sense of paranoia--that suddenly explodes into a classic horror that keeps you reading through the night with every light in the house turned on. And King's style here is extraordinary: everything about the book is very precise with not a word out of place, the plot at once fantastic and disturbingly logical. There are several Stephen King novels on my bookshelf, and I enjoy them... but this is the one to which I most often return. If you've never read it, prepare yourself for Stephen King at his best. If you have read it, it's time to read it again.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

55 of 62 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Keep a Crucifix Handy! September 2, 2004

By Dennis Phillips VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Jerusalem's Lot is an unassuming small town in southern Maine. It is the kind of town where everybody knows everybody else and most of the residents have lived there all of their lives. In this atmosphere it was odd indeed when three strangers came to town at almost the same time. One of these strangers wasn't really a stranger at all. He had spent part of his childhood there and had returned in hopes of ridding himself of some old demons. The other two strangers also had an old connection with the town but it was a much darker and sinister connection.

Stephen King starts his macabre tale with these facts and then begins to weave a fascinating tail. He introduces the reader to the town in such a way that it makes one feel as if he had actually been to this fictional place. The reader will get to know many of the residents, some all too well. Some are likable, some are loathsome, and some are described so well that the reader will actually mourn their passing. One can easily feel Ben Mears' pain when he finds out that someone that he is very close to is gone.

As the dark cloud of vampirism spreads across the town there are a few residents who figure out what is going on. Some refuse to believe what logic and their senses tell them and they fall victim to the curse while others figure things out in time to flee. A few try to stop the spread of this evil and pay dearly. For those who have not seen one of the movies based on this book, this is all of the story that I am going to give away. For those who have seen the movies, neither movie follows the book too closely and the book is far superior to either film.

King's flair for this type of story is well known and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed with this book. It will entertain you, it will scare you, and it will delight you. While reading parts of this book I was able to feel the sense of dread that many people in the Lot were feeling. King is indeed a master when it comes to bringing gloom and doom off of his pages and into the hearts of his readers.

There are a few places where it is a little hard to follow just who is saying what in some of the conversations but beyond that I could find few flaws. I found it very interesting that the reader would not be able to figure out what was happening to the town until about the same time some of the characters do. Of course, that was when this book first came out. I dare say that few people who start this book now, nearly thirty years after it was written will be surprised by the basics of the story. The creepy factor must have been much greater before the plot was given away by the movies, but rest assured, there are still plenty of creeps between the covers of this book.