I went through a big Stephen King phase when I was in my teens.  (Who didn't?)  This was in the 1980s, which many feel was King's peak years of output - coincidentally, also the years when he was abusing the most drugs.  In fact I seem to recall that Salem's Lot is one of the books that King now cannot remember having written, thanks to the huge volume of coke he was snorting, but now I cannot find a reference for that.  

At any rate, this is his second published novel, published in 1975, after Carrie but before The Shining.  I had a vague recollection of having liked it, although not as much as I liked some of his other works.  Having recently re-read it, I have to wonder what I was thinking.  Perhaps due to the callowness of youth, I simply didn't know any better.

I would argue that Salem's Lot is one of King's worst books.  Which was a surprise to me, because it's generally accepted among fans that the earlier the Stephen King book, the better it is.  I actually gave up on Salem's Lot halfway through, just as the action was (ostensibly) starting to pick up.

That pondering slow pace is a big reason to give Salem's Lot a failing grade.  I was listening to the audiobook, so I don't have specific page numbers, but the first death doesn't occur until about a third of the way in.  And when it does, it happens off-stage.  As does the second death, and the third.  And that's about when I gave up.  I don't demand to see blood and gore, you understand, I just expect that the central events of any given novel should not take place off-stage.

You might wonder, what DOES happen on-stage?  An awful lot of TALKING, that's what happens.  Talking about nothing and everything.  Long conversations about the nature of life, or who knows what, because I kept zoning out.  Every moment of the protagonist's newly flowering relationship is offered up to the audience like a precious gem.  I ask you, is the soda fountain scene really necessary?  Actually, are any of the early scenes really necessary?  The answer, as far as I can tell, is "no."  And there is only so much local color I'm willing to sift through.

Salem's Lot is very much the work of a budding author.  By later novels, King could spin out the local color scenes like nobody's business.  Why?  Because his local characters are weird, and quirky, and interesting.  The human characters in Salem's Lot are pretty normal and well-balanced and unremarkable, and where's the fun in that?

What passes for character traits in Salem's Lot, I regret to say, is smoking.  Every character smokes, constantly.  Worse, King has fallen into the trap called "Funny Hat Characterization" in the Turkey City Lexicon: each character smokes a little bit differently, and this presumably is meant to signal something to the audience.  

King takes care to describe which brand the character smokes, and how, and what kind of implement (matches, lighter, gold Zippo) they use to light it.  I had to laugh when even one of the under-age characters is characterized by smoking (he dreams of smoking Camels when he grows up, just like his dad does).

Between all the smoking and the chatting, I just couldn't deal.  The opportunity cost of finishing Salem's Lot was just too high for what I knew would be the weak payoff.