’Salem's Lot

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**Title** '**Salem's Lot**
Early edition cover
Author	Stephen King
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror
Publisher	Doubleday
Released	1975
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
Pages	439 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0385007515
Followed by	One for the Road

’Salem’s Lot is a horror novel by Stephen King, written in 1975. It was King’s second published novel. The book was adapted into a 1979 TV movie of the same name, starring David Soul and James Mason. A sequel to that movie, A Return to Salem’s Lot, was made in 1987. A TV movie was made in 2004, starring Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher and James Cromwell.

The title King originally chose 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.

In a 1999 preface to the book, King discussed the importance of Dracula and formulated a theory that The Lord of the Rings was “just a slightly sunnier version of Stoker’s Dracula, with Frodo playing Jonathan Harker, Gandalf playing Abraham Van Helsing and Sauron playing the Count himself.”

For an insight on the inspiration for 'Salem's Lot see Stephen King's inspiration.

1 Plot summary
2 Links with King's short stories
3 Limited/illustrated edition
- 3.1 Deleted scenes
4 Legacy
5 Media adaptations
6 Editions
7 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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. 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. Once in town he meets local high school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan Norton, a young college graduate.

The Marsten House was the home of 30's Gangster Hubert Marsten. Hubert, or "Hubie" was a hitman who specialized in rather unsavory hits, particularly children. Hubie's profession intersected with his personal life and after his suicide, it was discovered he was responsible for the deaths of several children.

Mears discovers that the Marsten house has been bought by Mr. Straker and Mr. Barlow, a pair of businessmen who are also new to the 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, Matt, Susan, and a few other residents of the Lot try to prevent this from happening. In the end Ben and young Mark Petrie succeed in killing Straker and 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. An epilogue has the two returning to the town a year later, intending to renew the battle, but allusions in King’s later writings leave it an open question as to just how successful they are.

Many years later, the Marsten House was inhabited by the Vampire Kurt Barlow. It has been theorized that sometimes one evil draws another, but was later confirmed, that Hubie Marsten had in fact communicated with the erstwhile Barlow. It may be inferred that in the course of their correspondence, Marsten may have extended to Barlow the necessary invitation to come to 'Salems Lot.

The House served as an eventual pyre when it was burned down by Mark Petrie & Ben Mears.

Spoilers end here.

’Salem’s Lot is a combination of psychological thriller and the classic horror genre, making references to Bram Stoker's Dracula at several points and sometimes replicating its storyline.

[edit] Links with King's short stories

Previously, King had written a short story called "Jerusalem's Lot", which takes place in the 19th century, and many assume that it provides some back-story for the setting of the novel. Actually, a reading of the short story "Jerusalem's Lot" shows that it is unconnected to the novel 'Salem's Lot' –- but there is one element of the short story that foreshadows the novel, that of a deserted town called Jerusalem's Lot. King wrote a follow-up short story about vampires in ’Salem’s Lot called "One for the Road". Both "Jerusalem’s Lot" and "One for the Road" are published in the collection Night Shift.

[edit] Limited/illustrated edition

'Salem’s Lot: 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 scenes. It weighed over 13 pounds, was 9 x 13 inches and over 4 1/4" thick. A trade edition with a preface by King was later released.

[edit] Deleted scenes

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 referred to as Sarlinov.
A conversation between Ben and Susan about the true nature of evil.
An extended scene of Straker delivering 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 now 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, goes out differently. Rather than 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. 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 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.

Mark Petrie's chant used for repelling the vampiric Danny Glick is reused in another King novel, It.

At one point, Mears explains his experience in the Marsten house, including seeing the body of the dead previous occupant. Mears describes it as being a leftover or a remnant of what had happened there, just like the haunting of the Overlook Hotel in King's The Shining.