'Salem's Lot

Stephen King

May 2008 · Sold by Anchor

About this ebook

#1 BESTSELLER • Soon to be a new major motion picture • Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. 

"A master storyteller." —The Los Angeles Times

When two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work. In fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.

With this, his second novel, Stephen King established himself as an indisputable master of American horror, able to transform the old conceits of the genre into something fresh and all the more frightening for taking place in a familiar, idyllic locale.

Ratings and reviews

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!

About the author

STEPHEN KING is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and an AT&T Audience Network original television series). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, and Doctor Sleep are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.