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A review by phteven17
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
5.0
As someone who was rather averse to horror for over two decades, I was rather surprised when I first found myself enjoying the work of Stephen King. Now, two years and thirteen books later, King has yet to disappoint me!
‘Salem’s Lot is one of King’s books that leans heaviest into horror, along the lines of It and The Shining. Of those two, ‘Salem’s Lot has more in common with It, due to the broader scope and wide range of characters populating a small Maine town that is besieged by an ancient evil. In this case, that evil happens to be some good old fashioned vampires, very much in the same vein as Dracula. Heck, King even throws in some obvious parallels to Bram Stokers Dracula late in the book, which he actually points out a couple times. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed this more than Dracula, which I liked quite a bit.
Stephen King is a master storyteller, and one of his biggest strengths is writing compelling characters, and ‘Salem’s Lot is no different. I genuinely cared about what happened to the protagonists, and I found myself experiencing fear and heartbreak (if you’re expecting happiness and sunshine, this book isn’t for you) right alongside them. Even going further and looking at the numerous background characters, King wrote them well enough to add some good, believable depth to the town of Jerusalem’s Lot. This really helped add some gravity to the book and make the stakes feel that much more meaningful.
One thing this book makes me wonder about (and not for the first time) is how King handles writing such menacingly evil characters in all of his books when he seems like a decent enough person. For example, I know that writing The Screwtape Letters took a major emotional toll on C. S. Lewis, and if I recall correctly, Stephen King has straight up said that he will never write the character of Pennywise the Clown again because of how evil Pennywise is. Does he have to recharge before getting back to more writing? I know that he’s something of a musician, so maybe that helps balance things out for him? My brief attempt at a plotting out a short story involving a character struggling with some major inner darkness bubbling to the surface left me feeling emotionally drained, so I can only imagine what it’s like for a prolific author who writes evil so well.
But I’m rambling now because that’s how my mind works, so I guess I’ll wrap my review with this: you should read this book if you can handle some dark subject matter. Honestly, just read Stephen King, because the man can write a damn good story, and I think that is far more valuable than writing something that can be dissected ad nauseam by a bunch of English majors. And who doesn’t love a good story?
‘Salem’s Lot is one of King’s books that leans heaviest into horror, along the lines of It and The Shining. Of those two, ‘Salem’s Lot has more in common with It, due to the broader scope and wide range of characters populating a small Maine town that is besieged by an ancient evil. In this case, that evil happens to be some good old fashioned vampires, very much in the same vein as Dracula. Heck, King even throws in some obvious parallels to Bram Stokers Dracula late in the book, which he actually points out a couple times. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed this more than Dracula, which I liked quite a bit.
Stephen King is a master storyteller, and one of his biggest strengths is writing compelling characters, and ‘Salem’s Lot is no different. I genuinely cared about what happened to the protagonists, and I found myself experiencing fear and heartbreak (if you’re expecting happiness and sunshine, this book isn’t for you) right alongside them. Even going further and looking at the numerous background characters, King wrote them well enough to add some good, believable depth to the town of Jerusalem’s Lot. This really helped add some gravity to the book and make the stakes feel that much more meaningful.
One thing this book makes me wonder about (and not for the first time) is how King handles writing such menacingly evil characters in all of his books when he seems like a decent enough person. For example, I know that writing The Screwtape Letters took a major emotional toll on C. S. Lewis, and if I recall correctly, Stephen King has straight up said that he will never write the character of Pennywise the Clown again because of how evil Pennywise is. Does he have to recharge before getting back to more writing? I know that he’s something of a musician, so maybe that helps balance things out for him? My brief attempt at a plotting out a short story involving a character struggling with some major inner darkness bubbling to the surface left me feeling emotionally drained, so I can only imagine what it’s like for a prolific author who writes evil so well.
But I’m rambling now because that’s how my mind works, so I guess I’ll wrap my review with this: you should read this book if you can handle some dark subject matter. Honestly, just read Stephen King, because the man can write a damn good story, and I think that is far more valuable than writing something that can be dissected ad nauseam by a bunch of English majors. And who doesn’t love a good story?