Book Review: Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I was looking through the collection of books I have stored on my Kindle Library and stopped at Stephen King’s, Salem’s Lot. I thought back to when I read it. Salem’s Lot was one of King’s early novels and I think it was one of his best. Maybe it’s just me, but I have always thought that King’s early novels were his best. Now, I know that some of his more recent novels are excellent, but I liked his early ones the best.

Salem’s Lot begins with a young man, Ben Mears, who had grown up in the small, Maine town of Jerusalem’s Lot. After high school, Mears left Jerusalem’s Lot and had not returned home since then. Mears, had become a writer and had returned to Jerusalem’s Lot for the expressed purpose of writing a book about a particular house, the Marsten House. He had been particularly interested in the Marsten House because of a bad experience he had in that house as a young teen.

As Mears began his research into the Marsten House, he learned that during his absence, the Marsten House had been sold to Kurt Barlow, an Austrian immigrant. Mears learned, Barlow is never seen in public. Richard Straker, Barlow’s business partner, is the only one who is ever seen. This was very strange.

The story gets somewhat complicated as Mears learned that as around the time Barlow and Straker arrived in Jerusalem’s Lot children began disappearing. Also around that same time, people living in the town began vanishing and others become vampires. Is there something innately evil about the Marsten House? It seemed evil had always been drawn it.

As Mears is drawn deeper into the Capital E, evil that has befallen Jerusalem’s Lot, the story line increases in complexity.

While Salem’s Lot is a complex story, the characters were very real and the plot was believable. I enjoyed the story and found the characters engaging.

A note – it was novels like Salem’s Lot that went a long way to establishing Stephen King as one of the best, if not the best, writers in the horror genre. In a word, Salem’s Lot is frightening and should not be read at night in the dark.

In closing, I highly recommend Salem’s Lot for readers who like to be scared as they read.

Bill Kercher