“Writer Ben Mears has returned
to his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot with the hope that moving into a dilapidated
mansion, long the subject of town lore, might help him get a handle on his life
and provide inspiration for a new book. But when two young boys venture into
the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may
be something sinister at work. In time, he comes to understand that his
hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his wildest
imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the
evil that is tearing the town apart.”
This tale of vampires set in a
small rural town in Maine was King’s second novel. What strikes now –I think I
first read this book around 1980- is how
fully formed a writer King seemed to be at this early stage of his career. Yes,
the book is not perfect, it takes a bit to get going, a lot of exposition too
obvious, the falling in love at first sight trope, the too detailed inner
workings of a lot of people, but this would become a hallmark of King’s works
as well –the slow build up of terror; the plain-spoken people of the small
towns he does in his world building mode, people who very obviously choose to
ignore the malice and the utter dysfunction that simmers on low just below the
surface of the town. Also here, you see the early foundations for both Needful
Things (Barlow and Straker – Fine Furnishings is the obvious prototype for
Leland Gaunt’s charming curiosity shop in that novel) and IT (he
thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees
the ghosts) running through this novel. There
is also the character of Father Callahan, a ruin of a Catholic priest who
vanishes from the Lot after drinking the blood of Barlow the vampire only to
reappear decades later in King’s Dark Tower novel The Wolves of Calla.
While I can’t be sure, but I think when King wrote this book he had no idea he
would reuse this character in those later year; and one can be cynical and say
the writers attempt to connect all his books to his DT is a huge bit of
retconning, but like all artists, you can never really second guess their
motives for doing this. Still, King was already working on the Gunslinger tales
by the early 70s, so it is possible the reason why Callahan survived was to be
reused at a later date.
On this third read through, I
also caught a in-joke. One of King’s favorite authors was Donald Westlake (and
Westlake’s alter-ego of Richard Stark) and towards the end the book, when Ben
and Mark are heading into the vampire’s nest, they stop and get gas –using Doctor
Jimmy Cody’s car:
“Comes just to three dollars
even," Sonny told him brightly. “That’s Doc Cody’s car ain’t it? I see them M.D.
plates and it always makes me this of this movie I seen, this story about a
bunch of crooks and one of them would always steal cars with M.D. plates
because-“
This is reference to The Hot Rock, the 1972
movie version of Westlake’s 1970 novel of the same name, which introduced his
long-running John Dortmunder character. I, of course, have spent the last few years reading a lot of Westlake, so I loved this minor nod to the author.
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