'Salem's Lot

“’Salem’s Lot” provides a template for several Stephen King books to come.

It is the first of his novels where the cast of characters is the population of a small town, facing an evil that has arrived at its doorstep. A small band of townsfolk recognize the evil and band together to fight it.

King has written similar characters, towns and teams in “The Stand,” “Needful Things,” “It,” “Cell,” “The Mist,” “Under the Dome,” etc.

And that’s OK. These books usually delve into the mob psyche that scurries just under the skin of civilization.

In “’Salem’s Lot,” people don’t naturally turn on each other as much as they are turned into vampires after two mysterious men arrive and move into a long-abandoned house with a horrific legend in the town of Jerusalem’s Lot.

Granted, greed and ignorance lead people astray from realizing there is an evil in their midst until it’s too late. Actually, rational thought – a refusal to believe in supernatural evil – allows the vampires to thrive.

Also, unlike many other Stephen King books, “’Salem’s Lot” focuses fully on the presence of Evil with a capital E. In many of his later books, the terror strikes upon fears that people regularly face – alcoholism in “The Shining,” the loss of a child in “Pet Semetary,” etc. – as much as it does the supernatural horrors.

“’Salem’s Lot” remains a solid vampire tale nearly 50 years after its initial publication in the mid-1970s. It’s still a strong book, listed as King’s second novel after “Carrie,” and before dozens of other novels in the decades since.