Review of Salem's Lot

I've never read Bran Stoker's classic Dracula. I did see the Francis Ford Coppola film in the early nineties, and I have some dim memories of it. Problem was, I had made the bad decision to see it on LSD with my friends S and J. So the movie did not make a whole lot of sense and the memory that sticks out to me most was the vision of a moonlit Winona Ryder running down some stairs in her nightgown, full breasts unbound and all abounce in a most unVictorian manner. Me and my two friends involuntarily groaned aloud at the sight in the otherwise very quiet and very full cinema, a fact that to this day makes me cringe with embarassment and shame.

Anyway, Salem's Lot is based on Dracula. How loosely, I don't know: it seemed the film emphasized more a sort of love story between Dracula and Winona Ryder (this is not a thing in Salem's Lot) and I'm not sure which version is more loose.

I enjoyed Salem's Lot and if I hadn't been so busy at work lately, I probably would have read it faster. Stephen King writes good believable characters. I especially think his minor characters are well-written as his protagonists seem a little samey(going by this book and 1978's The Stand). I mean, there's the erudite 'professor type', 'the doctor', 'the normal guy', 'the comic-loving kid','the pretty-but-not-gorgeous sensible down-to-earth woman'...they all seem a bit familiar. 

The book is 41 years old, having been published in 1974(it's set in 1975) and it's prose does feel a little old fashioned in a slightly Steinbeck sort of way...but the ode to the New England Fall that he writes about a third of the way into the book is a really lovely passage that would probably stand by itself. 

Stephen King is excellent at delivering the chills, the fear that the characters feel affects the reader. This is interesting, I think it is his real talent and the secret to his success. Somehow he does tap the fears we all have had(but don't really talk about) as children or even adults sometimes and brings them back to life in us. It's a neat trick. 

HIs dialogue is problematic for me. It all seems a bit too...TV-ish. It's not that it's bad; it definitely does its trick and he's deft at using it realistically for exposition but I'm left wondering if people really talk like this in real life. I remember seeing TV programs where they did, but that's aboutit.
This is a small quibble though.

I enjoyed the book very much--really it was like candy and I will definitely read more of STephen King in the future.