Some screwy supernatural shenanigans are a’brewing! Monstrous things lurk in the shadows, and the town’s unassuming residents are succumbing to the evil forces at work. That’s right, folks, the sound of the bell is resonant today, for I’m reviewing another book by Stephen King-A-Ding-Ding.
The town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, is not okay. Writer and one-time Salem’s Lot denizen Ben Mears returns to the town to work on a novel and face childhood terrors attached to the place. He’s particularly riveted by the mysterious Marsten House, which is steeped in dark local legend. A fellow named Straker recently purchased the house and began making changes to it for his unseen business partner, Kurt Barlow. When Salem’s Lot residents start disappearing, Mears and a cadre of fellow townspeople set out to uncover the dastardly plot plaguing the town.
Stephen King is no stranger to vampire stories. Reading Salem’s Lot felt like I was entrenched in an author’s early work, at least a few years before he really hit his stride. Indeed, The Shining was released only two years later (sans vampires but featuring vampiric ideas), and it captured many of the same ideas as Salem’s Lot—corruption and loss of innocence, to name a few—with more panache. Doctor Sleep brought vampires into the modern age, letting them feed on energy. Salem’s Lot, King’s first vampire outing, reads like a breezy skim over a story that has depth but doesn’t want to show it. I say that knowing full well I enjoyed my time with Salem’s Lot in the same way I enjoy most Stephen King books nowadays. I go in expecting a solid story with lots of momentum that features real people confronting horrific truths. Whether King elevates the characters and themes into the stratosphere is something of a crapshoot.
This overall feeling is best exemplified by the story’s main-est (but not Maine-est) character, Ben Mears. In my trek through the King pantheon, I’ve encountered a heap of writer-protagonists with dark pasts, and Mears feels more like a silhouette than a colorful protagonist. I couldn’t help but think of The Shining’s Jack Torrance, whose descent into the corruption of The Overlook Hotel gloms onto my memory, whereas poor Ben Mears has already begun to fade away in my mind.
Ben Mears strikes up a romance with local girl-next-door Susan Norton, but their blossoming romance is cut short when she falls victim to the town’s plague of vampires. The would-be relationship is interesting enough, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the love story in 11/22/63, which thrives in its romance arc.
I wouldn’t be so thick as to say Stephen King can’t focus a story on a theme of his choosing, so it’s fine that Salem’s Lot enters stage left, tells its story as a breezy monologue, and exits stage right. It just doesn’t leave a mark like the best of soliloquies do.
The end result for me? Salem’s Lot is good, not great. But even a “just good” Stephen King book has its moments.
Rating: Salem’s Lot – 6.5/10
