[.ca] 'Salem's Lot: Illustrated Edition (ISBN 0385516487)

From Amazon.com:
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

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Vampire Attacks Small Town:
I was 11 years old the first time I read this and didn't remember anything about it except that it scared the living daylights out of me. I had a totally different experience this time around. This is your basic vampire story. An evil vampire moves into a very small town and slowly starts to turn the residents into vampires. A small group of people figure out what is happening and decide to take him out. I didn't find this scary at all. There have been a lot of vampire books written since 1975 and this one comes off as being rather lame and predictable. However, I would guess that in 1975 it was something different. The reason I enjoyed this book was due to the characters. Stephen King is a master at directing a huge cast of characters and this book had an enormous cast. The story of this little town and the people who inhabited it was fascinating. The minor characters were often the most interesting. King gets inside their heads and shows us that even the most mundane person will have deep and dark secrets. This is a town where everyone knows everyone and yet, in reality, they don't really know anyone and what is perhaps scariest is that when people start to disappear there is no one around who really even cares. Not exactly what I would call a page-turner but a darn good read and recommended to King fans who haven't read it yet

The greatest novel of all time!!:
Salem's Lot is not only the best novel Stephen King has written but, it is simply the best novel ever written period. Everything works perfectly in this book. The plot is not only about vampires in modern times, (with The 1970s being modern times) but, it's also about the good and evil in the human heart. This novel is very scary. It is also very moody. Stephen King slowly builds a feeling of coming doom as only he can. Once the action and actual confrontational scares start in earnest, they just keep on coming and never stop. Throughout the novel Stephen King gives enough attention to every day life detail that the horrific events that happen in this novel really do seem like they could take place. This is one of Mr. King's greatest strengths. The unbelievable becomes the believable in this book. In closing, Salem's Lot is simply "The Masterpiece"! If anyone enjoys great horror, Read this novel!! You will not be disappointed!

Salem's Lot is a Classic Vampire Novel:
I am a fan of Stephen King and am recently rereading a lot of his books. After reading Salem's Lot again I am quickly reminded of why it's one of my favorite King books. This book is creepy, fast paced and eerily realistic about how a small town can be taken over by vampires. There are many parts in the book where I got goosebumps thinking about the horrors the characters are facing. This is one of King's earliest novels and it proves that he was a talented writer from the begining. A must for a King fan and a must for a vampire fan. One of the best parts of the book is that it mirrors older vampire novels, when vamps were completely evil and frightening, unlike more romanticised vampires (Anne Rice books, which don't get me wrong I loved her vampire chronicles too). This book is scary on so many levels and even now after 30 years it remains a classic, vampire book and one of my all time favorites!

Not for Those who Romanticize Vampires!:
The trend in modern vampire literature is to make vampires somehow romantic or sexy (thank you Anne Rice), but it should be remembered that vampires did not always have such a refined image. Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is the story of a sickening monster, and the classic German film "Nosferatu" certainly does little for the vampiric image. Stephen King's stab at the vampire story hearkens back to these classics. His vampires generate disgust in those who see them; they look ill, and they smell bad. This is definitely not a book for those who think vampires are sexy. That said, "'Salem's Lot" is a justifiable classic in the field of vampire literature. King is not apologetic or even romantic regarding the vampires, but rather treats them in the classic Stoker tradition, as foul monsters. However it is not his treatment of the vampires themselves that makes this a good book. What makes King's book stand out is his talent for portraying ordinary people in extraordinary situations. The town of Jerusalem's Lot is full of the petty little conflicts and foibles that most small towns have, and King explores tham very well. The vampires find all of these weaknesses and exploit them to tear the town apart. The inevitable conclusion of the book is disturbing, not because of what it says about vampires, but because of what it says about how easily people are corrupted. Also of note: this book marks the original appearance of Father Callahan, who has taken on a prominent role in the recent volumes of King's Dark Tower series. This book has been adapted to the small screen twice (one of them very recently), but both attempts pretty much missed the mark. Though both adaptations have their good points, the book has more depth and more meaning than either TV-movie version managed to capture. This is a great vampire novel (though not for the vampire apologist), and one of King's best books.

Classic King, ultra scary:
Any vampire aficionado must read Salem's Lot. This '75 novel by Stephen King will have you checking under the bed and in closets for all manner of evil manifestations. Although dated, the plot is imaginative and gives the reader a good feel for the be-deviled hamlet of Jerusalem's Lot. Tortured writer Ben Mears returns to the town of his childhood after a lengthy absence, trying to ease the pain of his wife's accidental death. The boyhood memory of the town's haunted house compels him to visit the old ruin, and he decides to write a novel based on the house and the horrible events that took place there. For romantic interest, there is the developing relationship between Mears and local ingenue Susan Norton. To further flesh out the character, there are the friendships between Mears and the locals, in particular a 12 yr. old boy whom Mears becomes a surrogate father to, when the youth's parents and baby brother fall victim to the vampiric infestation. The best thing about Salem's Lot is King's ability to describe commonplace people and places while investing them with a poetic and lingering evil. He describes the town and it's inhabitants, the haunted house, and the vampires who eventually infest the town in a nightmare-inspiring fashion. Townspeoples' thoughts are described candidly in all their pettiness, erasing any notion of small-town folk being cleaner of thought and deed than city folk. King's descriptions of people and places incorporate imagery of weather and landscape in a way that few authors do. The advancing autumn fits perfectly with the town's decay. "See less sun, harvest's nigh done" (a folk saying commonly used by farmers) taken alone, seems innocuous, but when used to introduce a chapter where the vampires gain control of the town, it fills the reader with dread. Another outstanding feature of Salem's Lot is King's use of Wallace Stevens' poem "The Emperor of Ice Cream". To this day I don't know everything this poem represents, but it captures the menace and fear of the book overall. The novel has flaws which all early Stephen King works share. The female characters are one-dimensional, existing mainly as romantic interests or mother figures. Women with more than half a brain (few and far between in the early King novels) are usually portrayed as bitches. Meanwhile, the male characters are allowed much more expression of thought, greater wisdom and nobility, and are all-around American stalwarts. However, one can forgive King for these early flaws. His female characters have improved greatly over the years as King himself matured.But the book is so damned scary, one just doesn't mind the lack of depth in some of the characters. You just want to keep turning the pages in hopes of being scared to death. If your aim is to enjoy a good vampire scare-fest, you can't miss with this book.