Salem must burn

Salem must burn ( English original title: Salem's Lot ) is a 1975 horror novel by the writer Stephen King .

Emergence

The book is Stephen King's second published novel after Carrie , but was written earlier. The basis is the short story Jerusalem’s Lot , which deals with the same topic but is set in the 19th century.

Originally the novel should be called The Second Coming (German: Die Wiederkehr ); this was changed to Jerusalem's Lot and finally to the US title Salem's Lot .

action

In his childhood, the young Ben Mears enters the Marsten House in his hometown Jerusalem's Lot, or Salem's Lot for short, rumored to be a haunted house. It was named after the former owner Hubert Marsten, who murdered his wife there and then committed suicide. During this visit, Ben thinks he saw Hubert Marsten hanging from a rope.

After 25 years, Ben - now a successful writer - is returning to Jerusalem's Lot to face his fears. He resolves to rent the old Marsten house and make it an object, or at least an inspiration for a new book. Unexpectedly, he realizes that the house that had been vacant for many years has already been sold.

The owners, Kurt Barlow and Richard Straker, open an antique shop in the village. Soon there are first victims in Salem's Lot, such as a dog found impaled on the cemetery fence. A child disappears, his brother dies shortly afterwards. Various people die of anemia , the grave digger has bite wounds on his neck. Despite fear and dangers, Ben Mears continues to investigate the matter with the help of his girlfriend Susan Norton, the boy Mark Petrie, the priest Callahan, a doctor and an English teacher, as he suspects vampires behind the events.

Mark and Susan pay a visit to the Marsten House, during which Mark is captured by Straker. However, he manages to break free and kills Straker. Susan, on the other hand, falls victim to Barlow, who, as suspected, is actually a centuries-old vampire. Ben is now finally determined to kill Barlow.

A first attack on Barlow fails, however, this kills Mark Petrie's parents and forces Callahan to drink his blood. As a result, he can no longer enter his church and embarks on an odyssey through America. Ben Mears and Mark Petrie track Barlow again, and Ben succeeds in driving a wooden stake through the heart of the waking vampire immediately after sunset. Then the two of them flee and leave the city to the rest of the residents, who have since become vampires themselves. After being in hiding in a Mexican village for some time, they return to Salem's Lot and start a fire to finally destroy the city and its undead inhabitants.

Relationship with Bram Stoker's Dracula

The plot is an adaptation of the classic vampire novel Dracula by Bram Stoker . King moved the plot from Transylvania to Maine in the 1970s. The novel was originally supposed to be titled The Second Coming , which also clearly indicates an adaptation of the classic Dracula material. The book can also be understood as an homage to Stoker's Dracula.

The protagonist's lover, Susan Norton, becomes a vampire herself and has to be killed by him. The content of this scene is strongly based on the impaction of Lucy Westenra by her fiancé in Stoker's novel.

The name of the minor character Richard Throckett Straker is a mixture of the name of the writer Stoker with that of his main character Jonathan Harker. In addition, the novel Dracula by Stoker is mentioned several times in the book by Stephen King.

The depiction of the master vampire Kurt Barlow is based very closely on Dracula, as he is also described with a distinctive face and eagle nose and a thick mustache. Another correspondence is that both vampire lords initially appear as old men who rejuvenate themselves through blood consumption over the course of history.

reception

The book was nominated for a World Fantasy Award .

The novel has been filmed twice so far: in 1979 by Tobe Hooper under the title Brennen muss Salem and in 2004 by Mikael Salomon under the title Salem's Lot - Brennen muss Salem . In addition, Larry Cohen shot the film A Return to Salem's Lot in 1987 based on motifs from the novel .

A part of Wolfgang Hohlbein's The Witcher of Salem is set in Jerusalem's Lot, but the books have no other parallels.

Sequels and references in the King's universe

• Father Callahan, who leaves the city after he had to drink Barlow's blood, returns in the fifth volume of the Dark Tower cycle and tells in detail about his escape from the vampires and his journey to the midworld.
• In the 1979 short story One On The Road , King returns shortly to Jerusalem's Lot. A family is left with their car in the city destroyed by fire. A search party alerted by the father in a bar, who knows the rumors about vampires, is then attacked in Salem's Lot by the family, which has already been transformed into vampires, and flees, whereby the family father falls victim to his own wife. What is noticeable here, however, is that the transformation took place within a few hours, which in Brennen muss Salem took several days.
• The short story Letters from Jerusalem , set in 1850, can be understood as an early introduction to Brennen Must Salem , but it can also be interpreted as a continuation of Stoker's work. It was published together with Eine auf den Weg in the short story collection Nachtschicht from 1978, but was created earlier.

Editions and translations

The first edition of the novel was published by Doubleday in 1975. The first German translation by Ilse Winger and Christoph Wagner was published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag in Vienna in 1979. Since it was published in Austria, it contains various typically Austrian expressions (e.g. "Let me out!" Or "Schnürlsamt"), which cannot be found in other German translations of King's books. In this translation, the book has been shortened in many places, and some somewhat crude formulations have been omitted. A second, unabridged translation by Peter Robert was published by the same publisher in 1995. In 2006, Paul Zsolnay Verlag published a luxury edition with a new foreword by Stephen King, scenes from the manuscript that were omitted or changed upon publication, and both of them Short stories One on the way and letters from Jerusalem .

Literature and Sources

• Stephen King: Salem has to burn. Heyne 1997, ISBN 3-453-02053-7
• Marcel Feige: Stephen King Lexicon. Imprint Verlag 1999, ISBN 3-89602-228-8

Web links

• Information about the book
• Detailed table of contents in KingWiki
• Excerpt from the book (PDF; 71 kB)
• Carl Nymphenbad on its origin and influence