Salem's Lot
Ben Mears returns to Jerusalem's Lot, the Maine town where he spent a traumatic boyhood summer, to write a book about the Marsten House on the hill above Main Street. By the time he arrives, Kurt Barlow, a European antiques dealer with a silent partner who never seems to leave the house, has already moved in, and children and adults across the Lot are beginning to die in quiet, bloodless ways. Joined by a schoolteacher, a priest losing his faith, and a boy who still reads horror comics seriously enough to be useful, Ben tries to stop what the town has agreed not to name. Stephen King's 1975 second novel is a patient, small-town vampire story, as much about how a community stops being a community as about what is feeding on it.
Themes & atmosphere
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What you might want to know about Salem's Lot
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Novelist Ben Mears comes back to the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot to write a book about the abandoned Marsten House. A new owner has moved in, and the townspeople are starting to disappear into night.
Yes, multiple times. Tobe Hooper directed a 1979 TV miniseries; a 2004 TNT miniseries also exists. A 2024 film directed by Gary Dauberman was released after sitting on the shelf for two years. Each takes a different approach.
Yes. Salem's Lot connects to Stephen King's broader Dark Tower universe through the priest Father Callahan, who appears in Wolves of the Calla and later Dark Tower books.
Salem's Lot was written by Stephen King, published in 1975 by Anchor Books.
Salem's Lot is 488 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Salem's Lot takes most readers 7 to 11 hours to finish.
Salem's Lot is a standalone novel by Stephen King, not part of a series.
Salem's Lot is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.