Product Description

Stephen King's second novel, Salem's Lot, is the story of a mundane town under siege from the forces of darkness. Considered one of the most terrifying vampire novels ever written, it cunningly probes the shadows of the human heart -- and the insular evils of small-town America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #357308 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-19
• Released on: 2004-01-19
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .93 pounds
• Binding: Audio CD

From Amazon.com
Stephen King's second book, 'Salem's Lot (1975)--about the slow takeover of an insular hamlet called Jerusalem's Lot by a vampire patterned after Bram Stoker's Dracula--has two elements that he also uses to good effect in later novels: a small American town, usually in Maine, where people are disconnected from each other, quietly nursing their potential for evil; and a mixed bag of rational, goodhearted people, including a writer, who band together to fight that evil.

Simply taken as a contemporary vampire novel, 'Salem's Lot is great fun to read, and has been very influential in the horror genre. But it's also a sly piece of social commentary. As King said in 1983, "In 'Salem's Lot, the thing that really scared me was not vampires, but the town in the daytime, the town that was empty, knowing that there were things in closets, that there were people tucked under beds, under the concrete pilings of all those trailers. And all the time I was writing that, the Watergate hearings were pouring out of the TV.... Howard Baker kept asking, 'What I want to know is, what did you know and when did you know it?' That line haunts me, it stays in my mind.... During that time I was thinking about secrets, things that have been hidden and were being dragged out into the light." Sounds quite a bit like the idea behind his 1998 novel of a Maine hamlet haunted by unsightly secrets, Bag of Bones. --Fiona Webster

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From AudioFile
A dark wind is blowing into Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, in the guise of antique furniture dealers R.T. Straker and Kurt Barlow. Novelist Benjamin Mears has returned to the village near Portland to exorcise his childhood demons. Immediately, townspeople begin suffering from strange flu symptoms, or disappearing altogether. Mears and local high school teacher Matt Burke understand the peril the town faces. Soon they're joined by an artist, a doctor, an alcoholic priest, and an 11-year old boy, forming a modern-day team of vampire hunters. Ron McLarty goes straight for the jugular as he reads Stephen King's second novel. His voice is gently welcoming as he portrays the townspeople, giving them authentic rural Maine accents. But he also commands a menacing tone that will have listeners checking over their shoulders and under their beds. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine