King said Lisey's Story is his most complete story and his favorite novel that he wrote.

I didn't like it as much as some of his other books. It felt like it took forever for me to read b/c I just couldn't get into it. It was an interesting concept but just didn't interest me that much.

i actually have a terrible memory for books/movies, which is great for rereading. i forget most of what happened in Lisey's Story but i remember it was my favorite book for several years. my wife didnt like it though

Lisey's Story is the only King novel I've picked up and haven't finished.

I just uploaded my podcast about Carrie, discussing the book, the audiobook as read by Sissy Spacek, and the 3 movies. Here's a direct link.

Carrie Podcast

So Salem's Lot starts on 1st May. I personally will be covering the book, the audiobook as read by Ron McLarty, two short stories from the Night Shift collection that deal with the town (Jerusalem's Lot, One for the Road), the two different TV series based on it, and the weird movie sequel 'Return to Salem's Lot'.

I'll also be trying to get ahold of a BBC radio production from 1995 of Salem's Lot to be completist.

In part based on this thread, I picked up a copy of It and started reading it again. It's ridiculously good. I started at ten last night and I'm 270 pages into it; everyone else in my family is pissed off because I'm ignoring everyone to read it. I'd forgotten how good King at his best is.

It is indeed glorious

I will try and get a copy to reread

SALEM'S LOT is one older King book I have somehow managed to not read. Maybe because I saw the 1979 mini-series as a kid (which scared the s**t out of me) and I figure I know the story already. I have heard the book is really good so time to go get it I reckon.

I haven't read Salem's Lot either, and the timing is great, as I'm finishing up my current book in the next couple of days.

ah yes. salem's lot. a great read! i thought i would know a lot of what was going on from what i read in the dark tower, but i was pleased to find that the content from dark tower was mostly separate other than a few details.

one thing i will note about this book that doesnt particularly have anything to do with the story is that i like how stephen king uses the phrase "(name) thought, not for the first time, (thought)."

king is the only author i can think of who regularly uses that phrase and i like it

I too really liked Salem's Lot. Among King's best.

Just a reminder, readers.

I finished It yesterday. Overall, it's terrific. I was a little annoyed at two things that King did. They're minor nits, though.

Finished The Stand. I enjoyed it. A lot of it could have been cut out though as I found it a chore to get through at times tbh, but once I got to about 60% through it was fine.

Fran Goldsmith will go down as one of my most hated, annoying, characters. An absolute pain in the arse. I wanted to gouge my eyes out with her incessant whining and pondering. I suppose it's testament to Kings writing that I can despise a fictional character so much.

I loved The Stand. I recall hearing a story that when he first brought the book to the publishers that they refused it saying it was too long. King promptly added another 200 pages or so and said publish it.

Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King




Death is when the monsters get you


So here we are at book 2 in the Stephen King published bibliography.

Background

King was inspired by Dracula, one of the books covered in the class. "One night over supper I wondered aloud what would happen if Dracula came back in the twentieth century, to America. 'He'd probably be run over by a Yellow Cab on Park Avenue and killed,' my wife said. He also mixed Peyton Place into the mix. In two separate interviews, King said that of all his books, 'Salem's Lot was his favorite.

King first wrote of Jerusalem's Lot in a his short story "Jerusalem's Lot" of the same title, penned in college (but published years later for the first time in the anthology collection Night Shift). I'll be discussing this as a follow up to this main look at Salem's Lot.

In his non-fiction book, Danse Macabre, King recalls a dream he had when he was eight years old. In the dream, he saw the body of a hanged man dangling from the arm of a scaffold on a hill. "The corpse bore a sign: ROBERT BURNS. But when the wind caused the corpse to turn in the air, I saw that it was my face - rotted and picked by birds, but obviously mine. And then the corpse opened its eyes and looked at me. I woke up screaming, sure that a dead face would be leaning over me in the dark. Sixteen years later, I was able to use the dream as one of the central images in my novel 'Salem's Lot. I just changed the name of the corpse to Hubie Marsten."

Another inspiration for the book outside Dracula and Peyton Place is Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House - he references this book in the text, and uses the opening passage of that book as and epigraph for Part One of Salem's Lot. Yet another were the vampire stories found in horror comics, especially EC comics.

Thoughts

This was a fun read. It's amazing that I remember the story as much closer to the 1979 miniseries than it actually was, but I do think the 79 Salem's Lot was a great TV adap, and was a formative TV experience among kids of my age (I'll talk about this another time, I intend to rewatch that series within this month too, and report on it). I remember a lot of the urbane Barlow's dialogue being spoken by Straker, for example!

There are clearly direct inspirations from Dracula and EC in handling the horror elements - Barlow is very, very suave and ancient and is clearly an analogue for the old Count D himself, and there are numerous EC moments - especially the bus driver finding his bus full of vampire kids, and Danny Glick floating outside the window, and just thinking about a vampire baby... King seems to relish the small-town gossip stuff too, but I found this less engaging, and wished there was a little more inner dialogue for some of the characters to draw them in even finer detail. King does suprising things throughout which stops it becoming too formulaic, though I do wish he'd written some of the events that he skims - I was kind of irritated he didn't write the turning of Susan - that could have been a classic piece of writing that's entirely absent. I also wish he'd have give us a passage explaining exactly why Barlow did what he did to Straker near the end...I know Straker messed up, but it seemed again skimmed over.

I don't know why, but I think King's thinking about small towns precipitates near the end when the lawman is ready to quit town, and says he reckons some of those people will be happier as vampires. It made me chuckle.


7.5/10 for me

Funny, I was looking for new podcasts to listen to, and stumbled across this Dead Robots' Society podcast where they discuss 'Salem's Lot. It's two King lovers and one annoying hater (who actually does make a few fair points). Pretty interesting.

http://deadrobotssociety.com/2013/02...to-salems-lot/

It's been about 20 years since I've read the book, and it's kinda scary how much of it came back to me after listening to this. I won't be reading it again right now, but I'll definitely be joining in next month for The Shining.

Danny Glick floating outside the window is still one of the creepiest things I can remember seeing when I was a kid. For a few weeks after seeing it I wouldn't look out a window at night and couldn't sleep unless my curtains were closed.

Thanks for this, I will definitely listen to it today or tomorrow.

Two stories from the Night Shift Collection about Salem's Lot:

Jerusalem's Lot - This is King's take on Lovecraft, imitating the style and beat of that master of cosmic horror, talking about the history of the town and how one bad bloodline ran through it. No vampires, but something monstrous. It's pretty good actually, King does it well. He feels like a mix of Poe and Lovecraft, and there's plenty of 'eldricht' and 'tenebrous' (but no 'cyclopean'), and it's a good rattling read, in the tradition of the best Lovecraft.

One for the Road - This is more a short story sequel to the main story of Salem's Lot, where people living around kind of know it's a bad place, and suspect the worst. And a family get lost and end up in Salem's Lot a few years after the events in the book. More typically King, but pretty good.

I'll rate these when I eventually get to Night Shift.

Glad to know that I wasn't the only one not disappointed in the end to the Dark Tower series. I really found it fitting and for some reason it comes to mind all the time.

+2

Salem's Lot - BBC Audioplay (1995)

This was a rather fine audioplay spanning 3.5 hours. The voice acting was good, and the actual conversion to suit the form (7x 30 minute episodes) was excellent. It varied from the book in a number of places but not particularly significantly, and preserved the main thrust and spirit of the book.

There was a framing device in each episode which involved Ben Mears confessing to a Mexican priest/telling the priest the story, but that worked fine. Some of the actors did sound like Brits doing American accents (particularly Mark Petrie, but I couldn't find any information to check he was indeed British), and Barlow and Ben Mears were particularly good. Of extra interest was the Barlow was voiced by Doug Bradley, the actor who played Pinhead in most of the Hellraiser movies.

8/10

Looks like Gerald's Game is going to be made into a movie.

http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/cann...epid-pictures/