'Salem's Lot

I loved... and hated this story since I was 9 years old when I was, grudgingly, allowed to watch the movie. It scared me like nothing else. I remember being sent to bed and slinking down the hall to my bedroom trying to stay in the light. I turned on the bathroom light to illuminate the doorway to my bedroom and peered in. I was just old enough for some part of my mind to say "Your being stupid." But still young enough for another part to respond "Yeah, I am sure that's just what the kid said before he got EATEN!" Then I was off like a shot, stepping on the last edge of light and jumping into bed and pulling the covers over my head. The book, of course, puts the movie to shame.

While I enjoy the horror component of the Vampires it is the evil of the small town that has always captivated me in this story. This is a book that I sometimes read cover to cover, and sometimes just pickup and choose a chapter at random. In each case, and in every reading, I find myself "glad" to be back in Salem's Lot - though I must admit a particular pull to the chapter where King describes how the town wakes (and Eva.s breakfast scene specifically). This edition has the wonderful bonus of deleted scenes (Thank you!) And two wonderful related short stories that I have always enjoyed (though to disagree with a main character of one of the stories, I think Took's Rest is a fine name).

Salem's Lot was the first book of Stephen King's that I ever read. My mom suggested that I read it. So, I started to read it - in a very old house where my mom and I were staying at in upstate New York, by the Hudson River. And I am dead serious when I say that I started reading the book (a paperback), at night, during a rain storm. It was truly a dark night. When I got to the part where Danny Glick is at Mark's window, coincidentally, the storm became very loud. Upon a huge crack of thunder, I howled bloody murder, and threw the book across the room. Yes, I woke up everyone that night. I read all of it within a day. I went backwards, I think - I read his second book first, then I read Carrie. Salem's Lot is a marvelous book, very intense, very sad too. A great book. I think it's high time I get a new copy of it!