With this reflection I was starting to find my groove. King becoming a favorite with his “The Stand” and my parents buying his new releases as Christmas presents for me.
A Lot to Handle, a reflection on Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
by M J Moran
This was my first Stephen King novel. I didn’t plan on reading the novel, sci fi/ fantasy was my schtick with pulp stories mixed in. Still I like a good horror movie and when Salem’s Lot was a mini-series I caught the first night. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to catch the second evening due to having to cover a shift at my grandmother’s liquor store. That mini-series literally haunted me, making me jump each time a branch outside my window brushed against the glass. As recently noted by a friend, Greg Espinoz, Geoffrey Lewis’s portrayal of Mike Ryerson, an early victim, was shocking and memorable. His eyes alone seared into the audience.
I don’t know if it was the night I missed or later but Salem’s Lot the novel appeared on the paperback spinning rack at our store. I snatched it up hoping to maybe put some of the nightmares the mini-series caused to rest. I wasn’t so lucky so I spent a summer cursing the tree by my window.
I revisited the mini-series prior to revisiting the novel, found that it holds up but not as frightful as it was to my 18 year old self. The novel, though, still held its power. I found myself forging through the last 100 pages late at night, refusing to put it down. Just like I did 43 years ago.
I forgot how King could draw me in. When reading Carrie, I was viewing a well crafted tale, noting the structure as if examining an artifact. I enjoyed it but I was outside the story. With Salem’s Lot I became immersed in the tale, coming up for air to reflect on themes etc but while in the story, I was just being the story.
These reflections change as I move forward with them. As noted here I watched the Salem’s Lot,1979 mini-series recently and plan to watch the associated TV mini-series or shows associated with the works as I move forward. Due to the 2004 mini-series being available only on DVD, I plan to add any insight after the DVD arrives. I’ve also taken to doing a little research into each work. Not deep dives because I don’t want the research to color my impressions and thoughts. So any research is done at the end of the reading not prior. Although I’ll admit if I have read something in the past and it nags my brain, I will look it up.
King has described Salem’s Lot as “Peyton Place meets Dracula” and has at times claimed it is his favorite novel. I think his concise description is spot on and what makes the story work. Originally he played with the idea in a short story “Jerusalem’s Lot” which would later be published in The Night Shift collection. His thinking was that Dracula dumped in the middle of New York might have problems but placed in a sleepy town away from the main roads would be the perfect setting.
Here is where King shines, creating a character in The Lot itself. Chapters are headed by the characters they focus on such as Ben, Susan, Mark, Father Callahan and The Lot. Reading those chapters, the reader is exposed to the darker side of small towns, the gossip who controls information, the handyman drunk, the broken or breaking marriages. In the early chapters where Ben Mears arrives in town, the reader sees the surface of Salem’s Lot as he interacts with other members of the cast. The friendliness towards a stranger with a distrust of outsiders being an under current. I’ve known these people, I’ve worked alongside them, they are familiar. King pulls me in by reminding me of who my neighbors can be. I know the good as we meet Matt Burke, Mike Ryerson, and Susan Norton but I’ve also known the bad, Mabel Werts watching out her window spying on everything, Weasel Craig looking to scrounge his next drink every night and Henry Petrie who’s world is organized but lifeless.
In looking for themes, my prior reading of King comes into play but even without that knowledge themes emerge. His focus on the Marsten House and its history throughout the story plays with the idea that evil attracts evil. That a location can be a magnet and storing place for evil. Making a connection to Barlow, the Vampire and to Marsten himself dilutes the idea a little but doesn’t negate it. With his next novel The Shining, King will delve deeply into the idea that a location can hold onto evil.
There is a strong allegory to the death of the small town in general. Moving from an urban area, Berkeley, California to a rural city, Davis California, I noticed that Davis still held on to that small town charm. There was a welcome wagon, milk delivery and even block parties when we first lived there. By 1975 these were things of the past. For the past 23 years I worked in a small town of Winters, California but can see its growing pains as it tries to hold on to its identity while fitting into a modern world.
Although not as strong as future works, King begins his exploration of camaraderie, stealing directly from the dictionary, the mutual trust and friendship among people. In Salem’s Lot it becomes an inherent thing without the participants knowing why. In later works King will explore the origins of such fellowships but in Salem’s Lot it just happens.
It is in the last third of the book that the question of faith and the very foundations of good versus evil become prominent. The question of faith was a strong theme in King’s Carrie while not pronounced Salem’s Lot, one major character wrestles with faith and what it means. That character will make an appearance in later works, still struggling with what is faith. King at the very end of the book, takes the battle of good versus evil a step away from it being a battle of the Christian Church against evil, to something older, something primeval.
Salem’s Lot held the same mystique and thrills in the second reading 40 years later as it did when the tree kept scratching my window. I’m older so I don’t think I'll have as many sleepless nights. I can see why Stephen King says this is his favorite and why I see it as the perfect vampire story. You may have noted I talked little about the vampire aspect of the story. Although it is the core of the story, King doesn’t deviate too much from the common lore. What makes the story so strong is what he does around the lore that makes this such a great read.
After Note: I find the original 1979 mini-series still entertaining but of course it focused more on the vampire aspect than the book does. Excellent effects at the time made it scary but those effects pale against modern technology. One deviation from the book was to make Barlow the vampire, Nosferatu like with a bald head etc. and his henchmen Straker (James Mason) a more old worldly gentleman. This is a reverse of the novel where Straker is bald and menacing while Barlow appears in suits with a full head of hair.
The book cover I chose reflects the attention on the Marsten House in the novel over the Nosferatu-like covers that reflect the mini-series.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
1975 Doubleday
Reading copy
2011
Anchor Books