'Salem's Lot

Well, I’m not going to pretend that I read this book in one sitting, all though I did blow through it. I neglected to blog while reading, mainly because I was unwilling to stop reading when it would have been appropriate to write a blog. I’m sorry about that, but I’ll try to make this one blog as good as all of its components would have been, had I written them.

“‘Salem’s Lot” is about a small town in Maine that is set upon by a vampire. Just as the author, Stephen King, says in his introduction, this story is that of Dracula in a new environment. I chose this book because I’ve read a couple Stephen King books, and had heard about this one from several people. I enjoy being frightened, and I had high expectations for this book. It was decently scary, but not to the degree that I had hoped. I was hoping it would be the kind of scary where your whole body gets tense, and you desperately want to be distracted. This book only had short bursts of the held breath sort of scary. The problem, I suppose, was that he didn’t give quite enough of the terrifying details. Also, once I realized that there were only 2 non-expendable characters, I was not completely shocked when the others died. I thought that the action took too long to begin, as well. King did, however, put a great deal of suspense in the book, although some of it was confusing. There was one scene where I realized that a character had died, but I had no idea how, and had not even been aware that that character was in any particular danger. So I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to find out how Jimmy died, still not completely confidant that he had.

Although the build up to the end of the book was great, the ending felt rushed and incomplete. I loved how the author brought together a band of heroes to save the day against all odds, and then allowed the more probable, more human ending to occur: the band cannot possibly save their town from a vampire onslaught; the best they can even feasibly hope to escape with is their lives. The characters that were looked down on by the heroes for running without even trying to help ended up with much the same fate as the main heroes. Although one party gave everything, including their lives, in some cases, they could only arrive where those that had fled before had. The author reveals that even the greatest intentions may be as insignificant as lesser ones.