A Childhood in Twenty Book Covers - Salem's Lot by Stephen King

 

2 – SALEM'S LOT  by Stephen King

I was only 7 years old when director Tobe Hooper’s 2-part adaptation of Salem’s Lot was first screened on television. The miniseries was shown in the US in November 1979, but UK television wouldn’t get it for nearly two years, broadcast on Tuesday 7^th September and Wednesday 9^th September 1981.

For someone who now adores horror in all its forms – novels, movies, TV shows – I hated it as a child. It terrified me. Scared me stupid. Gave me nightmares. But I also hated going to bed on my own in the dark, so when this miniseries was shown, and both my brother and sister wanted to stay up and watch it with my parents, I had to stay downstairs with them. But I was determined not to watch it. So, I lay on the settee with my mum, my sister and my brother sitting in a line in front of me, all perched on the edge of the settee, forming a human barrier between me and the TV.

But what about the sound? The best I could come up with was to lie with my fingers in my ears so I couldn’t hear it, which wasn’t going to work as each episode was 95 minutes long. You just can’t lie there with your fingers in your ears for over an hour and a half.

So, I ended up hearing it. And, being a child, I couldn’t help peeking around my family to see what was going on.

Over the course of those two nights, I pretty much saw it all. I saw little Ralphie Glick floating outside his brother Danny’s bedroom, his eyes glowing, his long nails scratching on the window as he begged to be let in; I saw Danny sit up in his coffin and bite Mike Ryerson as he was filling in the grave; I saw Mike sitting in the rocking chair in Jason Burke’s spare bedroom, his eyes glowing in the dark, hissing like a serpent; I saw Barlow spring up out of nowhere in the jailcell, scaring the hell out of a sleeping Ned Tebbets (not to mention me too).

Trying to sleep on that Wednesday night, after the second and final episode of Salem’s Lot was an impossibility. It’s a memory that still haunts me now (if you’ll excuse the pun). Every time I closed my eyes I could see the Marston House burning and hear the vampires screaming in pain and terror^*1.

I tell you this to illustrate the troubled history I had as a child with Stephen King’s classic vampire story before I’d even gotten around to picking up a copy of his original 1975 novel.

I’ve spoken before about reading the novel for the first time elsewhere on my blog, but for the sake of new readers I’ll quickly retread old ground for the benefit of clarity. It was around 1983, when I was 9 or 10 years old, that I borrowed a book from the library. It was the same book that my mum had brought home from that very same library just 2 years earlier. We called it the container library; it wasn't a permanent library, but a converted trailer of a lorry and only came around every Tuesday, parking in the car park of the local Catholic church just round the corner from where I lived. So, anyway, this book was a hardback published by Bounty Books and contained the first three of King's novels: Carrie, 'Salem's Lot and The Shining. The cover had a montage of stills from Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining. Inside the novels were presented in reverse publication order – his third novel, The Shining, was first, followed by his second, 'Salem's Lot, and finally his debut novel Carrie^*2 . But I didn't read them that way. I noticed on the copyright page that Carrie should be read first. Then Salem's Lot. And finally, The Shining. So that's how I read them, in the correct order in which they were published.

What I thought of the other two novels is irrelevant here^*3, what is relevant is that I was totally blown away by Salem’s Lot. I loved it. It also terrified me (one of only two books that I’ve read in my life that has, when reading on my own at night, has spooked me so much that I had to stop reading) ^*4.

I first saw the above cover some time in 1989 on the shelves in WHSmith’s and immediately loved it. It was heavily based on the 1979 miniseries, with the representation of the head vampire, Kurt Barlow, heavily based on Reggie Nalder’s portrayal from the series. And that little boy vampire just behind, that is little Ralphie Glick, surely? It certainly looks a lot like actor Ronnie Scribner, with his hair plastered down over his forehead.

I’d never owned a copy of Salem’s Lot until I saw this cover, and knew I had to buy it. Looking at the cover artwork for the first time in the book department of WHSmith’s immediately evoked those feelings and sensations of terror and panic that I experienced as a 7 year old while trying not to watch the miniseries from behind the physical barrier that was my family – especially the moment that Barlow appears to Ned Tebbets in the jailcell, and the screaming vampires burning in the Marston House. I had picked up the book with trembling hands and took it to the checkout. It was £3.99 and I reached into my pocket and fumbled out a £5 note. I was trembling and by this point my palms and forehead were covered in sweat, like Ben Mears whenever he thought about the Marston House. The person behind the counter must have thought I was some kind of simpleton, being allowed out on their own for the first time.

I took it home and read it immediately. Loving it all the more the second time around. Since then, this book has been just about everywhere with me, I’ve read it in while on holiday in caravans, on trains while travelling to stay with friends,  in the back of cars, on beaches, campsites and while taking a bath.

I’ve now retired this paperback copy of Salem's Lot. For me it’s too precious to risk damaging it anymore. Now I have a couple of other copies which I read or take away with me – I have a Hodder illustrated edition paperback (which includes the short stories Jerusalem’s Lot and One for the Road, as well as deleted and alternate material excised from earlier drafts. I also have a copy of the US Anchor Books paperback, because I love the cover (it’s artwork is of the Marsten House burning, flames pouring out of every open window).

For a while an imprint of the novel, using the same illustration, but bearing a different author logo and with a jagged slash of silver lightening bisecting the artwork (all done in a very similar style to King’s mid-80s Futura paperbacks), was available, but they were quickly replaced by this style of cover – indeed, all of King’s novels (barring the Futura paperbacks) were re-released in matching covers (author logo with pointed ‘N’ and pointed ‘G’; all one colour with a simple, but striking, piece of artwork in the center). These were, and still are, my favourite imprints of King’s novels. They have never been bettered, either before or since. It was in these covers that I first read Christine (a gorgeous, deep red with great artwork of Christine herself rolling out of the dark mouth of an open garage door toward us); I re-read The Shining (a twinkle of shining light blazes from one eye as a young boy covers his face, while eerie faces emerge from the darkness behind him); I first read Pet Sematary (the spectral face of a cat forms in the tangle of branches that hang over an eerie, mist-strewn graveyard). It was in these covers that I would re-read Carrie over the next 40 years (and continue to do so), and read for the first time my favourite collection of King’s short stories Night Shift (which so beautifully references the story Children of the Corn).

In my opinion, Salem’s Lot has never had a better, more unnerving, and more aptly visceral cover than the New English Library version I bought in WHSmith’s in 1989. It’s had some good ones since (the current Anchor Books version as stated above, or the UK re-release hardback); it’s had some bland ones (the current UK paperback version is pretty dull, or the previous UK paperback with someone in a black cape and hood walking through a forest – which looks more like Red Reding Hood than Stephen King); and it’s had some downright awful ones (the Pocket Book cover with the screaming woman and the bat in a speech-bubble coming out of her mouth is just too embarrassingly awful for words to describe!!!). But none have had the same effect on me as the late 80s NEL version.

 

 

 

NOTES –

1 – I’m not exaggerating. It’s something that had never happened to me before and has never happened to me since. When I closed my eyes I could clearly hear the vampires screaming as the Marston House burned. It was a terrifying sensation.

2 – Why? Don’t ask me. Probably because, at that time, Kubrick’s The Shining was still a new movie, and they assumed that people would be picking the book up for that novel more than the other two. That my best guess.

3 – Oh, go on then, I’ll spill the beans. I wasn’t impressed with Carrie, not at that point. In fact, it would take me another 20 years and several re-reads before I really started to appreciate the novel. For years I considered it to be my least favourite King novel, I thought that Brian De Palma’s film adaptation was far superior. But I don’t feel that way anymore – my least favourite King book is now his 2006 novel Cell. So, now I love Carrie, unlike The Shining which I loved on my very first read, and still love it to this day. Along with both Carrie and Salem’s Lot, these are the 3 King novels I have re-read the most.

4 – The other was Communion by Whitley Strieber.