Stephen King - 'Salem's Lot
I'm reading all of Stephen King's fiction in publication order.
It's been 14 years since the first (and only) time that I read 'Salem's Lot. I can date it pretty precisely, because I was re-reading The Dark Tower in the wake of the publication of The Wind Through The Keyhole and decided I should read the novels that link to that series. I remember enjoying it at the time, but it's long enough ago that I don't remember any of the details of the book, so this felt like a first read all over again.
Carrie may by King's first novel, but I'd argue that this is the first Stephen King Novel. Carrie feels like a longer version of the short fiction King had been publishing at the beginning of his career; 'Salem's Lot feels like a Proper Novel, and feels much more like the books that follow it in terms of its scope, tone, and themes. I don't remember reading the introduction last time I read this book, but King's statement that he wanted to take Dracula and the EC Comics of his childhood and turn them into a Moby Dick-esque Great American Novel really does ring true. You can see the ambition on the page here.
I've always been impressed by King's ability to take a very large cast of characters and make them all feel vital, even when some of them are people who only appear for a scene or two. He's excellent at putting us into the psychology of a small town by putting us in the heads of its residents. He's also really good at showing us the impact of a big event by building a mosaic of different perspectives. There are a few montage-esque chapters here that work really, really well.
This isn't a perfect novel. King's tendency to just follow the story rather than plotting often leads to threads getting dropped or forgotten about, and that's certainly the case here. The novel really sets up the Marsten House as a significant location, almost an emblem of the evil that grips this town, and it feels like a missed trick to not have the book climax there. Instead it ends up functioning as something of a red herring, in a way that feels messy rather than planned and satisfying. Similarly there's the lose end of what happened to Larry Crockett, and what leverage Straker and Barlow had over him initially, that's discarded partway through the book.
They're small quibbles, though, and I liked this a lot. It's really fun to see some threads here that King will pull on again, too. I feel like the DNA of IT is in this book (and maybe the house on Neibolt Street is King making up for not letting the Marsten House shine in the way he wanted it to). Similarly I feel like the antiques shop that Steamer and Barlow open - another thread that never really goes anywhere - very obviously becomes the base material for Needful Things later in King's career.
Is this a masterpiece? I'd say not. But it's a very good book, and I think it's fair to say that it's had as much impact on late-20th and 21st century vampire stories as Dracula ever did. I don't think we get things like 30 Days Of Night, John Carpenter's Vampires, From Dusk Til Dawn, or Let The Right One In without 'Salem's Lot.
Next stop, The Shining.