20250609 Monday Book log: 'salem's Lot (1975) Jerusalem's Lot, the titular town in Stephen King's second novel, is a neighbouring town to the location of his previous book Carrie. Again, King chooses to set the narrative to the near future and the present time. The story takes place in 1975 and 1976, a couple of years before the events told in Carrie. But apart from an early in the book, by-the-way naming of Chamberlain, Maine being close to Jerusalem's Lot, King makes no explicit mentions of further relationships between the two stories. There are several implicit parallels between the two stories, though. A small, rural American town goes under due to both natural and supernatural evil. A town experiences huge, destructive fires. The main characters are partially driven by revenge. However, the differences between the two books are more striking. In 'salem's Lot, King expands the cast into an ensemble of characters and weaves their stories into an even more engulfing tapestry. And being a vampire story, the divide between good and evil is much more obvious. The evil is an external one which gives the drama more of an us vs them arc. The social commentary seems more explicit in 'salem's Lot, too. The decline of rural America, the cynicism of capitalism and the exploitation and struggle of the working class are all mentioned in various ways. The town's richest man being a successful real estate agent who helped usher in the era of the trailer home, is a nice touch. The Korean war and Watergate come up, and the Vietnam war is directly named in several passages. The Vietnam war is implied, too. The main villain sets up a primitive but horrendously effective booby trap. The vampires hide in dark, narrow underground lairs, forcing the heroes to dive into the darkness to seek them out and kill them. The horrific use of fire as a weapon is another parallel. Throughout the book, most of the chapters are named after the town's various characters. King presents them to us in turn one after the other, describing their more or less mundane daily lives. Slowly we start to see their interconnections, and we get sense of the emerging terror from the outside. This technique reminds me of disaster movies, which often build the tension slowly towards a crescendo. Unlike many disaster movies, though, the story here doesn't sizzle out when we pass the half way mark. King mostly manages to pull it off, but it does feel like the heroes seek out Dracula/Barlow a bit too soon. The narrative seems to be heading towards a full-on, chaotic vampire infestation, which in the end is partly averted and partly left undescribed. While most of the book is narrative and dialogue driven, some sections of the book feel more filmatic. King masterfully immerses the reader with a few descriptions of locations around the town. A couple of passages feel like a camera moving across the landscape. And long gazes through windows and across the town are a common motif. In particular, several of the town's people have their eyes drawn towards the looming house on the hill. The Marsten House becomes a character in itself, sometimes appearing to threaten the characters. We get to know that the House has a dark history. It was the home of a 1930s gangster, the site of a murder suicide, and is seemingly connected to the disappearences of several children a few decades back. And it is implied that there is a connection between the former and current inhabitant. I haven't read many vampire books, John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let the Right One In was the previous one. The opening of 'salem's Lot, with an unknown man travelling with a seemingly unrelated child, took me straight up to Let the Right One In. And there are more obvious similarities. Both books have a child as a main protagonist. They both have autobiographical aspects, with the author being represented by some of the characters, and being set to locations which are the same as, or close to, where the author grew up. And they both paint a vivid picture of the historical time they take place in.