'Salem's Lot spends a lot of time telling you that the supernatural is real. This almost seems like wasted effort—after all, the book is horror fiction. If you're reading it, you're on board with suspending disbelief about vampires and ghosts and whatever else, right? Why all the effort to convince you? Perhaps it's because people in a small town really wouldn't believe in vampires. If that's the case, the discussions about whether vampires could be real isn't about convincing you that vampires exist; it's about convincing you that the small town exists.
Questions About The Supernatural
- Are the supernatural forces for good as convincing as the supernatural forces for evil?
- What supernatural fictions are mentioned in the novel? Does mentioning these fictions make the vampires more real, or does it have some other purpose?
- If you were in 'Salem's Lot, at what point would you start believing in the vampires? Would that be… too late?