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
Related
Post
La Hora del Vampiro (resumen en castellano)
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The 1970s in the
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