'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

Horror has always been one of the great storytelling tools for examining the woes of society. Like ancient Greek tragedy, we see the protagonist's faults, their shortcomings, and we know they will be punished for their misdeeds and we shall be cleansed. Tragedy makes you weep at the universal human condition. Horror makes you laugh at the absurdity of it.

The small town secrets and family dysfunction rampant in the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot are painted in fine detail (like a kitschy Thomas Kincaid-on-crack painting) by Stephen King. There are town drunks, wife abusers, absentee parents, schoolyard bullies, drunken priests, philandering wives, emotionally frozen widows, and more. And you know they'll all be dead or turned into vampires before it's all said and done. The town has a fairly quiet history, but holds its share of skeletons in the closet, as any good small town will. Jerusalem's Lot has the secret of the Marsten house, the site of a grisly crime that has left a legend whispered by schoolchildren and town gossips. When the author Ben Mears comes to town to work on a book dealing with his brief encounter with the Marsten house, all Hell quite literally begins to break loose. The town gains two new residents, quiet shut-ins who take up residence at the Marsten house, something nobody has done since the murders...

When it's revealed that the two newcomers are eternal movers and shakers of the blood-drinking sort, the story becomes a breakneck "who's-gonna get-it-next?" tale of vengeance and redemption. Nobody in town is innocent, and King leaves the story with enough open ends and unfinished thoughts to lift it above pulp horror schlock. It's hard to bring anything fresh to the lore of Vampires, but King's worthy effort rises above the pack.