The Town Knew Darkness

(A Book Review of Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot)

Far more complex than his debut Carrie, Stephen King ups the ante in his sophomore hit ‘Salem’s Lot, published in 1975.  Raising the bar of horror from a quaint character study of a girl coming to terms with her powers and her eventual maturity, King opts to a much larger grasp of the terrors that haunts us (or more specifically the American way of life) by digging into the darkness hidden in the human heart and focusing on the familiar confines of small-town life where malevolence festers underneath the sheen of its idyllic exterior.

Jerusalem’s Lot, or ‘Salem’s Lot as commonly known and called by its locals, is no stranger to its own shadows one of which is the Marsten House, the notorious haunted house in the area where violent incidents and whispers of occult…