‘Salem’s Lot was published in 1975, just a year after Carrie. Stephen King’s second book is his first official doorstopper, so I’m posting the summary by itself for manageability.

In the novel’s prologue, a tall man and a young boy who are apparently not father and son are making their way across the country. The man supports them with odd jobs and checks the Maine newspapers for any news of the town of ‘Salem’s Lot, which he eventually finds in the form of a long article describing how a lot of the town’s residents have relocated or simply vanished. The young boy decides he wants to join the priesthood, and a priest confronts the man about the insane things in the boy’s confession, which the man says are all true. The man then asks the boy to return with him to ‘Salem’s Lot.

In Part One, “The Marsten House,” thirty-two-year-old Ben Mears returns to ‘Salem’s Lot twenty-five years after he lived there as a boy, and two years after his wife Miranda was killed in a motorcycle accident. Ben’s first move is to scope out the creepy town fixture of the Marsten House. Then in the park, he meets an attractive girl named Susan, who happens to be reading one of the novels Ben has written. Ben tells her about his childhood in the Lot, including leaving shortly after his aunt’s house burned down in the big town fire of ’51. We get some history about the town, including that it was named after a pig and that it’s so small it’s isolated from most of the country’s tragedies. Susan fights with her mother about Ben (she’s been dating another man, Floyd Tibbets, whom her mother prefers) before going to the movies with him, after which Ben tells her about the time he went into the Marsten House, which has a famous history in the town because the rumored gangster Hubie Marsten shot his wife there before hanging himself. Going in as a boy to impress some other boys, Ben claims he saw Hubie Marsten still hanging in the master bedroom, and that Hubie opened his eyes before Ben fled. He admits he could have hallucinated it, but believes the house has some kind of monstrous, psychic energy. He had wanted to rent the house upon his return, but someone had already bought it, and he and Susan can see apparent candlelight illuminating it from the porch of Ben’s boarding house.

We get a description of a long day in the Lot tracking different town members, including a groundskeeper, Mike Ryerson, finding the body of a dead dog hanging from the cemetery gates; the new young boy Mark Petrie besting a bully; the real-estate agent Larry Crockett reflecting on the suspicious deal he made with the strange man named Straker who bought the Marsten House and is opening an antique furniture store with his partner Barlow; the high-school English teacher Matt Burke noticing there’s a car parked at the Marsten House; Ben going to Sue’s parents’ for dinner; the young brothers Ralphie and Danny Glick heading through the woods after dusk to visit Mark Petrie when they’re accosted by something mysterious; and finally, a mysterious figure apparently making some kind of sacrifice. Danny returns home without Ralphie and can’t remember what happened, and a few days later Danny’s hospitalized and dies of anemia. Straker calls in a service from Larry Crockett (who made a killing investing in trailer parks) to have some furniture delivered to his house. The men tasked with the delivery are overcome with fear as they drag a large piece of furniture down to the Marsten House cellar. One of them returns to Larry and says he thinks he might have seen a kid’s clothes down there that might be Ralphie Glick’s, but Crockett bribes him to ignore it.

Constable Parkins Gillespie interrogates Ben about where he was when Ralphie disappeared, and Ben refuses to let Gillespie near his manuscript pages. Gillespie also questions Straker. Ben and Susan have sex in the park, after which point he finally explains that his book is about the Marsten House and that he’s done a lot of research on Hubie Marsten, who was a contract killer. Ben believes the house still contains Hubie’s evil, especially since kids have started disappearing again now that the house is re-occupied. Ben then goes out to Dell’s bar and ends up meeting Matt Burke, who talks to him about the Marsten House because he found out Ben was writing about it from the town librarian. After Danny Glick’s funeral, Mike Ryerson is burying the coffin when he becomes convinced that Danny’s eyes are open inside the coffin, and he eventually digs it up and sees that they are. A weird stranger visits Dud Rodgers at the dump he runs, and Dud starts to feel hypnotized. Father Callahan, drunk again on a Sunday night, ponders the nature of evil. Matt and Ben have dinner together and keep discussing the Marsten house and Danny Glick’s death. Matt goes to Dell’s and runs into Mike Ryerson, who’s very sick, so Matt lets him come home with him; that night Matt hears Mike say “come in” and Matt is overcome by fear as he hears the laugh of a child and “sucking sounds.”

In Part Two, “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” Matt calls Ben to his house (asking him to bring a crucifix) and they debate whether Mike is dead; Matt voices his vampire suspicions, and Ben says people will think he’s crazy, so they call in the Constable and medical examiner to make their own determination, fudging what really happened. Matt, Ben, and Susan are planning to visit the Marsten house that day when Ben is attacked by Floyd Tibbets and has to be hospitalized. Susan argues with her mother, who thinks Ben is bad news and has something to do with all the weird stuff going on; when she shows Susan a tabloid claiming Ben was drunk at the time of the motorcycle accident that killed his wife, Susan says she’s moving out. Ben sends Susan to Matt’s house and Matt tells her what happened with Mike; they hear a noise upstairs and Matt goes up and sees Mike rise, then banishes him out the window with a crucifix. Matt has a heart attack.

Sandy McDougall wakes the next morning to find her baby Randy dead. Ben and Susan debate what really happened at Matt’s house. Floyd Tibbets dies in jail. Corey Bryant visits Bonnie Sawyer to carry on their affair when Bonnie’s husband shows up and threatens to kill Corey; when Corey finally leaves, he runs into Barlow. Some bodies have disappeared from the morgue. The undead Danny Glick visits Mark Petrie, who staves him off with a cross. Ben convinces Dr. Jimmy Cody to exhume Danny Glick, but when they try to get permission from the Glick parents, they find out they’ve died. In the meantime, Susan decides to go out to the Marsten house by herself, where she runs into Mark Petrie. Jimmy and Ben sit up with Marjorie Glick’s body, and when night falls, she rises and attacks them, biting Jimmy before Ben banishes her with a cross; Jimmy douses his bite wound with vodka which somehow staves off its effects. They make up a story about what happened when they talk to Sheriff McCaslin. Mark and Susan see Straker leave the house before they break in, but then Straker is inside and knocks Mark out and ties him up in the attic. Using Houdini as inspiration, Mark manages to free himself and bashes Straker in the head with a bed leg when Straker returns. Mark tries to go down to the cellar to get Susan, but Barlow is down there with her, and Mark flees; that night Susan visits him as a vampire but he refuses to let her in. Father Callahan visits Matt and they debate about the supernatural and the changing conception of “evil” in the Catholic church.

In Part Three, “The Deserted Village,” lots more townspeople are getting sick. Susan attacks Sheriff McCaslin and her parents. Mark tells Ben what happened to Susan, and Mark, Ben, Jimmy and Father Callahan make plans to confront Barlow. Eva Miller notices a weird smell in the cellar of her boarding house where Ben’s been staying. Father Callahan hears everyone’s confessions so they’ll be pure for their confrontation with Barlow. When they get to the Marsten house, Callahan tries to banish the evil with a cross, and there’s a weird light and the windows blow out. Inside, Straker’s hanging upside down and bled out, and Barlow’s left a letter for them saying he’s going to kill them. They go to the cellar, where Ben stakes Susan. Callahan and Mark go to Mark’s parents while Ben and Jimmy go back to Matt at the hospital. At Mark’s, Barlow attacks and kills Mark’s parents; Callahan gets him to let Mark go by agreeing to let go of his cross, and Barlow makes Callahan drink blood. Ann Norton visits the hospital with a gun but is stopped, then dies. Ben and company debate where Barlow is hiding now that his house has been compromised. Father Callahan, now unclean so he can’t enter a church, buys a bus ticket out of town (and some liquor to go with it). The school bus driver wakes up to kids vandalizing his bus that turn out to be vampires. Corey Bryant returns as a vampire to Bonnie’s to take his revenge.

The next day, Jimmy, Ben and Mark visit Barlow and Straker’s shop, now closed, and find Mike Ryerson’s body. Ben makes stakes at Mark’s house while Mark and Jimmy try to find the vampires’ daytime hiding places and go to the McDougals’, exposing the father’s body and making him writhe but letting him return to the shadows. They realize from chalk Mark saw on Barlow’s fingers that he’s in Eva Miller’s boarding house basement, where there’s a pool table. A former student visits Matt at the hospital and witnesses Matt’s heart attack and death. Jimmy and Mark go to the boarding house, where Jimmy falls into a trap set by the vampires, who removed the cellar stairs and put a bunch of knives at the bottom. Mark manages to escape and gets Ben. They get holy water from the church and return to Eva’s, finding Barlow’s case in the cellar. Ben hacks it open with an ax and Barlow looks in Mark’s eyes, causing Mark to attack Ben and almost shoot him, but Ben overcomes him and manages to drive a stake into Barlow, destroying him. The other vampires come out but can’t touch Mark and Ben because of their holy water. After Ben burns his manuscript, he and Mark leave ‘Salem’s Lot.

In the epilogue, strange stories from ‘Salem’s Lot continue, and Ben and Mark return to town. They go to the place where the famous fire of ’51 started, and Ben starts a fire to drive out the remaining vampires. The End.