Salem´s Lot, a novel by Stephen King

I had been reading Ana Karenina and I needed a change. I wanted something different; perhaps an adventure or a mystery would be nice. Searching the Internet I came across this novel, Salem´s Lot, and of course I immediately recognized it. It was the same Stephen King´s story that I had read when I was 15.

At that time I was living at my granny´s house and we were the two only inhabitants of this big old house. The furniture of the house was not common. They all had special carvings resembling the ones you can only find in a museum, or in old magazines from the 1930s. On the walls of the living-room some pictures of forgotten relatives hung looking severely at the passersby. This same house had been occupied by many of my granny´s dead brothers and sisters in the past and their spirits were still infused in the place.

The house was ideal to read this Salem´s Lot´s story. I happened to have found this novel by accident, or by fate. Who knows? Someone had left it in my bedroom inadvertently. I should have seen the novel on the shelf several times but I did not pay it attention. There was no cable at the time and the only enjoyments young people had were sports or … reading books.

One afternoon, with not much to do, I took Salem´s Lot, which was covered in dust, and began reading. The beginning was quite interesting, and very American. A travelling man, and a boy, were going from town to town, working here and there, and waiting for some news. I became so interested in the story that I forced myself to read the story in almost two days. As you can imagine the fear caused by vampires and dead bodies made me jump at every noise, real or imagined.

Stephen King. Wikipedia

What is Salem´s Lot about?

The story involves a writer named Ben Mears who returns to the town where he lived as a boy between the ages of 9 through 13 (Jerusalem's Lot, or 'Salem's Lot for short) in Maine to discover that the residents are all becoming vampires. …

What about the author?

Stephen King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. He was born in 1947.

He wrote Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, The Dead Zone, Misery, Cujo, Christine, The Dark Half, Bag of Bones, It, The Dark Tower, Doctor Sleep, etc.

What was happening in the USA in the 1970s?

The hippie culture, which started in the latter half of the 1960s, waned by the early 1970s and faded towards the middle part of the decade, which involved opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to nuclear weapons, the advocacy of world peace, and hostility to the authority of government and big business. The environmentalist movement began to increase dramatically in this period.

The Vietnam War came to a close in 1975 with the fall of Saigon and the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975.

United States President Richard Nixon resigns as President in 1974 while facing charges for impeachment for the Watergate scandal.

The last half of the decade was dominated by bands like Bee Gees, ABBA, Village People, Boney M, Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band, etc. while rock music went to artists such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple.

Salem´s Lot was published in 1975. In Spanish Salem´s Lot was published as La Hora del Vampiro or El Misterio de Salem´s Lot

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