Salem's Lot

Salem's Lot (short for Jerusalem's Lot) is the story of a small town in Maine (of course) that is haunted by an event that happened many years earlier and how this event brings evil to the town again. Years before the story takes place a man in town who lived in the spooky house on the hill killed his wife and hung himself. The house stood empty for many years until two mysterious gentlemen buy the house and a local shop in town where they sell antiques. The one man Straker is tall, charming, and creepy.  The second man, Kurt Barlow, is rarely seen as he seems to be always away on "business", however as the story moves along you come to realize that he is a vampire and is the harbinger of evil.

The main characters are Ben Mears, an author and widower, and Susan Norton a local girl who becomes involved with Ben. As always, there is an amazing supporting cast of characters that you don't want to get too emotionally involved with as you know nothing good will come to them. Ben comes to town about the same time as Straker and Barlow, and actually hoped to rent the Marsten house, but ended up at the local boarding house instead. He is returning to the town from his childhood as he wants to write a book based on the Marsten house.  He had a scary experience with that house as a child and it has haunted him ever since.

The story unfolds with strange events happening in the town.  First a dog is hung on the cemetery gates, next a little boy goes missing and his brother becomes very sick with anemia.  Then the brother dies. Then the local gravedigger becomes very sick and he dies. Each time the person dies, the body disappears from the morgue or the cemetery. The local teacher Matt Burke becomes friends with Ben and the two of them are the first to put together the theory about the vampires. They involve Matt's doctor Jim Cody, along with Susan. Soon a boy, Mark Petrie is also involved as well as Father Callahan.

I won't go through the whole plot, but let's just say that people underestimate the situation, some make very bad decisions and very few people make it out alive. The last 100 pages were by far the most creepy for me and I could not wait to get through it at that point.  I really finished this about 4 days ago, but it has made me do some serious thinking about confession and the role of faith and hope in how we live out our daily lives. The first time I read this, is was pretty forgettable for me, but now I find myself thinking about it over and over. I doubt it will ever be a favorite however, there are just too many characters for that.

Now on to Rage and The Shining.