'Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Stephen King's Bio- and Bibliography

****

Genre : Horror - Vampires

American publisher : Pocket books Fiction : 7,99$

English publisher : Hodder Paperback : 8,99£

Synopsis : As a kid, Benjamin Mears spent a few years in Jerusalem's Lot, a small town lost in New England. Today, he's a writer and he decides to come back in 'Salem's Lot for his next novel. But the house he wanted is already occupied. Two men came here to open an antique shop. But a child disappears, and very strange things begin to happen in this small town, people are infected with a fatal unknown disease. But the worst thing is that they come back to life, thirsty...they want blood. Who are those two new owners of the Marsten House, this old house which looks on the town, and where horrible things happened years and years ago?

An extract
In the head of the Father

"But there were no battles. There were only skirmishes of vague resolution. And EVIL did not wear one face but many, and all of them were vacuous and more often than not the chin was slicked with drool. In fact, he was being forced to the conclusion that there was no EVIL in the world at all but only evil - or perhaps (evil). At moments like this he suspected that Hitler had been nothing but a harried bureacrat and Satan himself a mental defective with a rudimentary sense of humor - the kind that finds feeding firecrackers wrapped in bread to seagulls unutterably funny..
The great social, moral, and spiritual battles of the ages boiled down to Sandy McDougall slamming her snot-nosed kid in the corner ad the kid would grow up and slam his own kid in the corner, world without end, halelujah, chunky peanut butter. Hail Mary, full of grace, help me win this stock-car race.
It was more than dull. It was terrifying in its consequences for any meaningful definition of life, and perhaps heaven. What there? An eternity of church bingo, amusement park rides, and celestial drag strips?
He looked over at the clock on the wall. It was six minutes past midnight and still no sign of Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. Not even Mickey Rooney. But the E-Vap had had time to set. Now he would vacuum it up and Mrs. Curless would not look at him with that expression of pity, and life would go on. Amen."

What I Think : I thought I had read this book a long time ago, when I was in Highschool and I used to read only horror books, but after reading (again?) it, I'm not so sure anymore. In any case, it was a great reading. At first, I found it a little long, and I was asking myself why Stephen King was talking about everyone's life in 'Salem's Lot, but I finally understood why. The fact that we know the life of the characters, their habits and all that, it makes things more horrible still, since we know them, it is as if they were real in some way. In 'Salem's Lot we don't really find the bloody side of Stephen King , everything is in the waiting, the stress grows slowly till the end. Things evolve slowly, it is all psychological. We're afraid, we say 'no that's not possible, they must survive'... What shocked me the most is the baby. There is a baby who becomes a vampire, and he bites his mom. I found that passage absolutely dreadful. Well that's Stephen King... Well 'Salem's Lot is really a good novel, if you like vampire and if you want to have a good fright, this is book is made for you!

Music : When I was reading 'Salem's Lot, I was listening to three songs in repeat mode all the time : Silent Scream, After the Rain, and Heavensent by Cinema Bizarre (I talked about them here). The lyrics don't really correspond to the book, but the title and the music absolutely do. A dark atmosphere and all that...