Salem's Lot

The hours slipped by unnoticed to the point where I no longer felt the passage of time. Sweet, delicious sleep called to me and I yawned in response, but I needed to write about the book I’d just read. If I didn’t, it would come knocking at my window in the middle of the night, asking to be invited in….

When I was in high school I became fascinated with Vampires. I suppose I was no different than most young people who become obsessed with the idea of eternal youth and rebellious morbidity. The thought of shadows slithering into my room as my caramel neck lay exposed against the soft white pillow, and the veils of moonlight seeping through the chiffon curtains like pale grey spider’s webs, enticed me. I studied the occult with ravenous delight, gathering as many books about vampires that I could get my sixteen-year-old hands on.

Vampires were never a gentle beast (as some poor young souls have been fed to believe in this Twilight saturated era); no, these were monsters; but unlike their stumbling boogeyman counterparts so many of us feared lurking under our beds or clawing at our closet doors, these beasts were slick, agile... seductive. Consider some of the most “successful” serial killers we read about today: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy. Their victims were not forced to follow them; they were seduced, ensnared if you will. A vampire’s victim oftentimes yearns to be taken.

Salem’s Lot is by far the best vampire novel I have ever read. Plain and simple. Keep in mind that you’re hearing that from someone who has read a great many vampire novels of both the fiction and non-fiction kind. No, Twilight does not count.

The plague borne in Salem’s Lot frightened me to the core. Which was strange because vampires have never done so before. I wanted to get away from them. I wanted daylight to break through the stygian, abysmal cloth of night. I am not a religious person, but there was nothing I wouldn’t have given for a drop of holy water or a crucifix while I read this tale of intoxicating evil. Due to this fact, you must know that I am the type of person who believes that everything happens for a reason....

The morning after completing the book, I walked through a local grocery store and noticed something small and silver on the ground. It was a crucifix. Somehow it had broken free of its previous owner’s necklace and onto the floor.

Under normal circumstances I would have returned it to “Lost and Found,” but on this day I scooped it up and placed it within the pages of Salem’s Lot, because who knows what I may have invited in after reading through its yellowed pages....

So, as my eyes grow tired and my mind grows weak, I will leave you with this, dear reader: whether you are religious or not, the most important thing in the world is to simply have faith and believe that you have the power to overcome the evils in this world... and also the power to resist inviting them in….

I dedicate this toast to you, Mark Petrie. You are most definitely the type of person I want to be when I grow up.

Gerald's Game

To be completely honest with you, I was not looking forward to writing about Gerald’s Game. Stepping into her world seemed voyeuristic enough, writing about it felt... facetious. I may as well have been lurking in a dark corner of her room with nothing between us but shadows and moonlight as I watched her sleep.

For weeks I struggled against reading this particular novel. The very idea of it made me feel degraded. Yet, it was also one of the books that called to me the loudest. There it was, shouting at me every time my fingertips caressed the spines of the other novels, knowing I would skip over it once again; every time my eyes would dart in its direction, hoping it would somehow disappear... like a bad memory. But bad memories never disappear, do they? Quite the contrary, they tear at your flesh like a cancer and expose you to the very core of who you really are. Ignoring those memories that you so very much try to forget is like trying to forget to breathe.

There is nothing supernatural about this book. No boogeyman lurking under the bed or houses pregnant with restless spirits. There is only the harshest of realities we must face on a day-to-day basis; the reality that sometimes the only monsters we need to fear are the people we want to trust the most. Who wants to face something so horrible as that? Not I.

Which is why when I finally read this book I was grateful. Grateful that I had gotten through it. Grateful that I was not her. Grateful that in all my years as an adolescent, I never had my childhood ripped from me as she did.

I learned two things from this book:

1) No matter how desperately we try to run away from our past, we cannot. It is an inevitable part of who we are and will shape our futures selves no matter how much we don’t want it to. And how we face our past is what makes all the difference between making us better, stronger people or weak, submissive ones.

2) I will never again utter the phrase “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

I dedicate this toast (I have chosen to toast with a glass of ice-cold water this time) to Prince. Perhaps the only true innocent soul in this sad tale....

Rose Madder

Pink. It had to be pink. Red seemed somehow grotesque and rude.

Whenever I read a book I feel inclined to include my two cents in the margins. Usually, “red” is my color choice for doing so, but Rose Madder would permit no such thing. The violence of the deep shade would not be allowed to touch its pages less I proclaim myself an enemy; an enemy who loved talking to people right... up... close.

Stephen King’s books make me... aware of my surroundings. They draw me into the story and when I look up from the pages of his world, my senses seem somehow enhanced. After reading Rose Madder I felt my senses sharpen like so many thorns bursting free of a rose’s stem.

Why are there so many crickets in my home lately...?

It is one twenty four in the afternoon. The sun is high overhead and a cool breeze washes over me as I sit outside marveling at the deep green leaves of the ficus trees that line our old wooden fence. Yellow buds from the steadfast willow float aimlessly through the air and land on the porch amongst its familiars. It is warm outside, even on this November afternoon, but a chill runs through me nonetheless as passages from the novel envelope me like words being whispered in my ear. Moments later I realize that this is the first King novel I have completed while there is still daylight out. This unsettles me.

In the past, when I complete one of his books I can fall asleep, and though my dreams might be plagued with the visions that float out of the pages, I can wake up to the sunlight as it streams in through the bedroom window in soft, welcoming waves.

My fingers twitch and an unwavering frown sits upon my lips. I do something I have not done since I was seven years old. I pinch myself, half expecting the slight sting not to hurt; half expecting this day to be a dream. The pain reminds me that I am very much awake and another twinge of fright crawls across my flesh like some grotesque insect scuttling across your foot.

Upon awakening this morning, the first thing I grabbed was the novel, even as I was still finding my way out of the previous night’s disturbing dream. I vaguely remember scribbling something down. Later, as I closed the book, I flipped through the first few pages and realized I had indeed written something

(in pink)

on the dedication page of Rose Madder.

"She knew she would die alone on that cold December night, under the watchful gaze of those jagged, salient stars."

All at once I feel like crying. Silently, I vow never to finish reading one of Mr. King’s novels while there is still daylight in the sky. It makes his world much too real. Much too Rosie Real.

As irony would have it, for the first time I use a deep red wine to toast a character. As the wine stains my pink lips, transforming them into a sensuous mauve

(rose madder)

and the remnants of the liquid settle to the bottom of the glass, I wonder how much of Mr. King’s books become reality after they are read.

I dedicate this toast to you, Rose Madder, for I am far too familiar with the madness of your troubled mind.

And somewhere, a plethora of crickets chirp contentedly....