Books: 'Salem's Lot By Stephen King (1975)

“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.