Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot

Oooh! Another great vampire story. One of the best and highly under-rated. The title always reminds me of that Eminem song Lose Yourself: “Mom, I love you, but this trailers got to go, I cannot grow old in Salem’s Lot. So, here I go with my shot. Feet, fail me not. This may be the only opportunity that I got.” Always a classic. One theme that connects both the song and the novel is perhaps the idea that living in a small town, confined and limited to its borders, can induce a sense of anger and desperation especially when times are tough, or feel more like life or death.

Anyway, as it usually happens in vampire stories, people start going missing, they get attacked, they’re forcefully converted, etc. There’s always that one guy or group in town that start investigating, looking into things, and – eventually – they all somehow meet up and band together to get rid of the monsters. Like most Stephen King books, Salem’s Lot explores town life, the people that give it life, and how it all goes round. He likes to really weave in the details into the narrative, which others often complain bogs down the drama and suspense. It just so happens that these vampires, though, are not entirely charismatic like Anne Rice’s. They are grotesque, monstrously predatory, and horrifying. Good old-fashioned, scary vampires. Salem’s Lot is a chunky, scary read.

Work Cited

King, Stephen. Salem’s Lot. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.