'Salem's Lot
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| 'Salem's Lot | |
 First edition cover |
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| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Publication date | 1975 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 439 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0385007515 |
| Preceded by | Carrie |
| Followed by | The Shining |
'Salem's Lot is a 1975 horror novel written by Stephen King, and was the author's second published novel. The title King originally chose for his book was Second Coming, but he later decided on Jerusalem's Lot. The publishers, Doubleday, shortened it to the current title, thinking the author's choice sounded too religious.
The novel has been adapted into a television mini-series twice, first in 1979 and years later in 2004. The novel was also adapted by the BBC as a seven part radio play in 1995.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew up in the (fictional) town of Jerusalem's Lot, Cumberland County, Maine (or “The Lot”, as the locals call it), has returned home following the death of his wife. Once in town he meets local high school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan Norton, a young college graduate.
Ben plans to write a book about the “Marsten House”, an abandoned mansion that gave him nightmares after a bad experience with it as a child. The Marsten House was the home of '30s Gangster Hubert Marsten. Hubert, or "Hubie" was a hitman who specialized in rather unsavory hits. Hubie's profession intersected with his personal life and after his suicide, it was discovered he was responsible for the deaths of several children. Unbeknownst to Ben and his new friends, the Marsten House is about to be inhabited by the vampire Kurt Barlow. It is later revealed that Hubie Marsten had in fact communicated with the erstwhile Barlow, and that in the course of their correspondence Marsten may have extended to Barlow the necessary invitation to come to 'Salems Lot.
Mears discovers that the Marsten House has been bought by a Mr. Straker and a Mr. Barlow, appearing as a pair of businessmen who are opening a new furniture store in town, although only Straker has yet been seen. Their arrival coincides with the disappearance of a young boy, Ralphie Glick, and the suspicious death of his brother Danny. Over the course of the book, the town is slowly taken over by vampires, reducing it to a ghost town by day as they sleep.
Ben and Susan are joined by Matt Burke and his doctor Jimmy Cody, along with a young boy named Mark Petrie and the local priest, Father Callahan, to stop the vampires from dominating the town. When Mark Petrie and Susan break and enter into the Marsten House, they are found and taken prisoner by Mr. Straker. Mark is able to fatally wound Straker (who is eventually killed by the master vampire Barlow for failing his duties), but Susan is captured by Barlow before Mark has a chance to rescue her. When Mark returns to the others, the characters begin to run into several unfortunate tragedies. Susan, while held hostage by Barlow, becomes a vampire herself, and Mears has to resort to killing her with a wooden stake. Then, Father Callahan is caught by Barlow, and Barlow forces Callahan to drink blood from his own neck, transforming Callahan into a dazed and confused human being, soon to take a bus ride out of town- his motives remaining unknown. Finally, Jimmy Cody is killed when he falls into a dark basement and is impaled by knife traps set by Barlow, while Matt Burke dies suffering from heart attacks in the nearby hospital.
In the end Ben and young Mark Petrie succeed in destroying the master vampire Barlow, but, lucky to escape with their lives, are forced to leave the town to the crop of newly-created vampires. The novel's prologue, which is set shortly after the end of the story proper, describes Ben and Mark's flight across the country, ending in a seaside town in Mexico.
An epilogue has the two returning to the town a year later, intending to renew the battle. Ben, knowing that there are too many hiding places for the town's vampires, sets some underbrush on fire in an attempt to destroy as many homes as possible thus making the vampires easier to hunt. The Marsten House serves as an eventual pyre when it is burned down by Mark Petrie and Ben Mears.
[edit] Background
While teaching a high school Fantasy and Science Fiction course at Hampden Academy, King was inspired by Dracula, one of the books covered in the class. "One night over supper I wondered aloud what would happen if Dracula came back in the twentieth century, to America. 'He'd probably be run over by a Yellow Cab on Park Avenue and killed,' my wife said. That closed the discussion, but in the following days, my mind kept returning to the idea. It occurred to me that my wife was probably right — if the legendary Count came to New York, that was. But if he were to show up in a sleepy little country town, what then? I decided I wanted to find out, so I wrote 'Salem's Lot, which was originally titled Second Coming".[1]
King expands on this thought in his essay for Adeline Magazine "On Becoming a Brand Name" (Feb 1980): "I began to turn the idea over in my mind, and it began to coalesce into a possible novel. I thought it would make a good one, if I could create a fictional town with enough prosaic reality about it to offset the comic-book menace of a bunch of vampires."
Political influences of the time were very heavy on King's writing of the tale. Corruption in the government was a significant factor in the inspiration of the story. "I wrote 'Salem's Lot during the period when the Ervin committee was sitting. That was also the period when we first learned of the Ellsberg break-in, the White House tapes, the shadowy, ominous connection between the CIA and Gordon Liddy, the news of enemies' lists, of tax audits on antiwar protestors and other fearful intelligence. During the spring, summer and fall of 1973, it seemed that the Federal Government had been involved in so much subterfuge and so many covert operations that, like the bodies of the faceless wetbacks that Juan Corona was convicted of slaughtering in California, the horror would never end . . . Every novel is to some extent an indavertant psychological portrait of the novelist, and I think that the unspeakable obscenity in 'Salem's Lot has to do with my own disillusionment and consequent fear for the future. The secret room in 'Salem's Lot is paranoia, the prevailing spirit of those years. It is a book about vampires, it is also a book about all those silent houses, all those drawn shades, all the people who are no longer what they seem. In a way, it is more closely related to Invasion of the Body Snatchers than it is to Dracula. The fear behind 'Salem's Lot seems to be that the Government has invaded everybody."[2]
King first wrote of Jerusalem's Lot in a short story of the same title, penned in college (but published years later for the first time in the anthology collection Night Shift).
In his non-fiction book, Danse Macabre, King recalls a dream he had when he was eight years old. In the dream, he saw the body of a hanged man dangling from the arm of a scaffold on a hill. "The corpse bore a sign: ROBERT BURNS. But when the wind caused the corpse to turn in the air, I saw that it was my face - rotted and picked by birds, but obviously mine. And then the corpse opened its eyes and looked at me. I woke up screaming, sure that a dead face would be leaning over me in the dark. Sixteen years later, I was able to use the dream as one of the central images in my novel 'Salem's Lot. I just changed the name of the corpse to Hubie Marsten."
In a 1969 installment of "The Garbage Truck", a column King wrote for the University of Maine at Orono's campus newspaper, King foreshadowed the coming of 'Salem's Lot by writing: "In the early 1800s a whole sect of Shakers, a rather strange, religious persuasion at best, disappeared from their village (Jeremiah's Lot) in Vermont. The town remains uninhabited to this day."[3]
In addition to Dracula, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Grace Metalious' Peyton Place are often cited as inspirations for 'Salem's Lot.
[edit] Links with King's other works
"Jerusalem's Lot" and "One for the Road", from Night Shift, 1978
- These two short stories act as a sort of bookend for 'Salem's Lot. "Jerusalem's Lot", written early in King's career, takes place in the 19th century and provides a back-story for the later novel, dealing with the underlying source of the evil in Jerusalem's Lot and the Marsten House. "One for the Road" was written after 'Salem's Lot and takes place after the events of the novel. Both stories were published in the Night Shift collection.
- Matt Burke brings up the disappearance that is explained in "Jerusalem's Lot" during a conversation with Ben about the strange history of the town.
Pet Sematary, 1983
- The exit sign for the town off Interstate 295 (now part of I-95), is noticed by characters driving past it.
It, 1986
- To keep his concentration upon the visitation of Danny Glick, Mark Petrie repeats certain rhymes--ending with '...he thrusts his fists against the posts, and still insists he sees the ghosts', a rhyme of major significance to Bill Denbrough in It.
Dreamcatcher, 2001
- Deep Cut Road, which features prominently in 'Dreamcatcher', plays a role here: The McDougall family lives in a trailer along this road, which means that it continues from 'Salem's Lot (however far out from the township) north, past Derry and into the hills where Dreamcatcher occurred.
- As in Pet Sematary, the exit sign to the Lot is seen from the highway.
The Dark Tower, 2003
- Father Callahan returns in Wolves of the Calla, the fifth book in The Dark Tower, and makes subsequent appearances in the sixth and seventh books as well.
[edit] Limited/illustrated edition
In 2005, Centipede Press released a deluxe limited edition of 'Salem's Lot with black and white photographs, the two short stories "Jerusalem's Lot" and "One for the Road", and over fifty pages of deleted material. It weighed over 13 pounds, was 9 x 13 inches and over 4 1/4" thick. A trade hardcover edition with a preface by King was later released.
[edit] Deleted material
- Different names for the town and the vampire; 'Salem's Lot is called "Momson" (mentioned in the final text of the book as a Vermont town whose residents mysteriously vanished in 1923), and Barlow is called "Sarlinov".
- A conversation between Ben and Susan about the true nature of evil.
- An extended version of the scene in which Straker delivers his "sacrifice" to his "dark father."
- A scene in which after being pronounced dead, Danny Glick's vampirism is foreshadowed much more prominently.
- Barlow's letter to the protagonists is instead a cassette recording. A vampiric Susan is with him.
- A more gruesome fate for Dr. Jimmy Cody. In the original manuscript, he is impaled by knives in a trap set by the vampires. Here, he is devoured alive by rats.
- More scenes of vampires causing chaos; Sandy McDougall is bitten by her infant son Randy, Dud Rogers bites Ruthie Crockett. Later, the aforementioned McDougalls are slain by Jimmy Cody.
- Father Callahan, the town's troubled Roman Catholic priest, meets his end differently. Rather than being forced to drink Barlow's blood and leaving town damned, he marks the vampire with a knife before committing suicide. Furious, the vampire desecrates the priest's body, decapitating it and hanging it upside down.
- Barlow is killed by sunlight rather than a stake through the heart. More rats are present in the final showdown as well.
[edit] Legacy
'Salem's Lot was the first of King's books to have a huge cast of characters, a trait that would appear again in later books such as The Stand and It. The town of Jerusalem's Lot would also serve as a prototype for later fictional towns of King's writing, namely Castle Rock, Maine and Derry, Maine.
King revisited the character Father Callahan, the local priest whose faith falters in the dreadful presence of Barlow, in his The Dark Tower series. He appears in Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and The Dark Tower, and provides insights into his experiences after being exiled from 'Salem's Lot. In addition, the central characters of the Dark Tower books acquire an actual copy of 'Salem's Lot at the end of Wolves of the Calla, which leads them to seek out King himself in one of the many alternate realities featured in the series.
'Salem's Lot was also the first novel by King in which the main character is a writer, a device he would use again in a number of novels and short stories.
[edit] Media adaptations
- Salem's Lot (1979)
- Salem's Lot - BBC radio production (1995)
- 'Salem's Lot (2004)
[edit] Editions
- ISBN 0451150651 (paperback, 1976)
- ISBN 0450031063 (paperback, 1982)
- ISBN 0606024344 (prebound, 1990)
- ISBN 0385007515 (hardcover, 1990)
- ISBN 0816156867 (library binding, 1994, Large Type Edition)
- ISBN 0671039741 (mass market paperback, 1999)
- ISBN 067103975X (paperback, 2000)
- ISBN 0385516487 (hardcover, 2005)
[edit] References
- ^ StephenKing.com: 'Salems Lot
- ^ "The Fright Report" Oui Magazine Jan 1980 p. 108
- ^ "The Stephen King Companion" Beahm, George Andrews McMeel press 1989 p. 267
[edit] External links
- Salem's Lot (1979) at the Internet Movie Database
- A Return to 'Salem's Lot at the Internet Movie Database
- 'Salem's Lot (2004) at the Internet Movie Database
- Bookpoi - Identification characteristics for first edition copies of Salem's Lot by Stephen King.
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