A contents page for Salem's Lot, found on Reddit. I read the novel on my kindle app but the contents are the same.
#SalemSeptember
Finished Salem's Lot + 'One for the road', the first of two stories. Haven't read the intro material or end matter.
A wonderful novel; I feel richer for having read it, but doubt I'd read it in full again. It's not a town to linger in. I'll likely return for the other short story.
Salem's Lot 14.46
#mood
"There was no surprise left on this dream-struck day; there was not even the capacity for it. They no longer saw themselves as doers or avengers or saviors; the day had absorbed them. Helplessly, they were only living."
#SalemSeptember
Two half-pint glasses of water on a wooden table.
Salem's Lot 14.45
"His face looked sad and old, like the glasses of water they bring you in cheap diners."
#OnWriting #WritingStyle
#SalemSeptember
#SalemSeptember 14.41
Battle fatigue
"He recognized the fact that he was now on the far, ragged edges of his endurance, the outer limits. His mind did not seem to be thinking, but only reacting. He kept seeing movement at the corners of his eyes and jerking his head round to look, seeing nothing."
Salem's Lot 14.39
Matt Burke tells the story of a small town in Vermont whose population vanishes in 1923, as a precursor to 1970s Salem's Lot. For the novel to work in our minds this has to be feasible. Something to do with landscape & demographics.
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot 14.33
How to get through the day, by Ben Mears
"He thought of the day ahead of them and all its potential hideousness, and shied away from it. The only way to get through it would be without thinking more than ten minutes ahead."
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot, 14.32
After Susan Norton, Father Callahan is, for me, the most tragic character in the novel, somehow truncated in the 1980s TV version.
"He thought then that he might break down, begin to cry. There were no tears. He felt very dry, and completely empty."
#SalemSeptember
I’m well behind with #salemseptember but as I move into the final part of the book I decided to treat myself to this gorgeous 1982 edition, which I love. It smells appropriately ancient
Salem's Lot 14.19
Representation of the vampire
"His ego is great, and his pride is great. These might be flaws we can put to our use. But his mind is also great, and we must respect it and allow for it."
#SalemSeptember
Shoes, socks, stubbled legs, in the sand at Tynemouth, May 2024.
Salem's Lot 14.18
Petrie marriage & family: Is this romantic, comic-tragic, or a un/secret third thing?
"His love for his wife and son were not beautiful—no one would ever write a poem to the passion of a man who balled his socks before his wife—but it was sturdy and unswerving."
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot, 14.17
Mr Barlow, or [insert name of some man you know]
"His ego is larger than even I imagined. ... [It] has grown the way a pearl does, layer by layer, until it is huge and poisonous. He's filled with pride... And his thirst for revenge must be overmastering"
#SalemSeptember
Ice Age: Scrat under water, holding an acorn, watched by piranha.
Salem's Lot, 14.17
I've had this dream, except the fish weren't a metaphor for vampires, they were fish.
"—and there will be a great many little fish after tonight. Their hunger is never satisfied."
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot. Susan Norton is reclining on a blanket on the grassy ground where she has been sketching, and reading a novel by Ben Mears, now discarded next to her. We can see the back of Ben Mears head as crouches down to talk to her.
Salem's Lot 14.15
💔💔
"... each of them had listened to the silence inside her ... Childhood horror and adult horror had merged."
#SalemSeptember
#SalemSeptember
"I was old when [the early church] ... hid in the catacombs of Rome & painted fishes on their chests ... My rites were old when the rites of your church were unconceived. Yet I do not underestimate. I am wise in the ways of goodness as well as those of evil. I am not jaded."
14.13
Salem's Lot 13.1
On literature
Poor old Varney. I read it a long time ago for a class report...Romantic Lit. The professor, whose idea of fantasy began with Beowulf and ended with The Screwtape Letters, was quite shocked. I got a D+...and a written command to elevate my sights.
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot 12.3
Mark teaches visualization
The book on Houdini said that concentration was all-important. No fear or taint of panic must be allowed in the mind..the escape must take place in the mind before a single finger did so much as twitch. Every step must exist...in the mind.
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot 12.2
In the Marsten House
The door was open just a crack, & the light did not penetrate at all. The tongue of darkness seemed to lick hungrily at the kitchen, waiting for night to come so it could swallow it whole. That quarter inch of darkness was hideous, unspeakable
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot 12.1
Fear as instinct not reason
'Can't you feel how bad he is? Doesn't that house make you feel afraid, just looking at it?'
'Yes,' she said simply, giving in to him. His logic was the logic of nerve endings ... it was resistless.
#SalemSeptember
Thank you @cultauthor.bsky.social for #SalemSeptember. I'll still be using it in Oct because I'm a slow-ish & easily distractable reader, but I wanted you to know that I'd meant to read Salem's Lot for years & am grateful for you setting up the hashtag/timescale - it's helping me focus & enjoy it.
Salem's Lot 11.10
Well. Marjorie Glick at Maury Green's mortuary. This is about halfway through, and no disrespect to the tribulations of earlier characters in the book, but I think this must be the tipping point from creeping unease to full-blown in-your-face horror.
#SalemSeptember
Going into Friday like Susan Norton driving up to the Marsten House alone.
#SalemSeptember
"..who knows what's going on in the houses, behind drawn shades? People could be lying in their beds...or propped in closets like brooms...down in cellars...waiting for the sun to go down. And each sunrise, less people out on the streets. Less every day." 11.5
#SalemSeptember
fewer (sorry I must)
"the child ... must cope with the thing under the bed or in the cellar every night, the thing which leers and capers and threatens ... the same lonely battle must be fought night after night and the only cure is the eventual ossification of the imaginary faculties" Salem's Lot 10.13
#SalemSeptember
'Closed', Franklin Boddin said, squinting to read the sign nailed to the gate. 'Well I'll be dipped in shit.' ... He spat out the window, discovered it was closed
- Salem's Lot, 10.6
Just setting the tone for the day. Good morning Sunday :)
#SalemSeptember
Is anyone out there still reading Salem's Lot? (I feel like someone who didn't realise the book group was a pretext for drinking wine). I'm not even halfway, so October will also be #SalemSeptember. Enjoy is not the right word at all, but for lack of a better one, I am enjoying it very much.
"... at that moment of hating the land and the soft suck of gravity that holds you to it, you also love it and understand how it knows darkness and has always known it."
Salem's Lot 10.1
#SalemSeptember
'... And what do you think Susan? Is there more than heaven and earth in your philosophy?'
'No,' she said with quiet firmness. 'Houses are only houses.'
Salem's Lot, 9.5
#SalemSeptember
Salem's Lot (1979), Susan Norton.
#SalemSeptember I'm at 9.5.
I didn't feel any particular way about Susan in the TV version, but now, reading her character with the foreknowledge of what's going to happen to her (assuming the TV portrayal is close to the book), she's a much bigger part of the story for me here. I'm feeling sad.
This is such a lovely listen, and by chance (very tangentially), also appropriate for #SalemSeptember
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
