Nowadays, it’s easy to see Stephen King’s name and have a conceived notion of his legacy. He remains well into old age one of the most prolific authors of his generation, producing masterpieces that dig under people’s skin and recontextualizes fears we’ve long taken for granted. In this Short Stop series, I will explore a period before he was the icon we know and love. Even with a handful of bestsellers to his name, his status had yet to cement. That is why I’ve chosen to take a look at his first story collection, “Night Shift,” and hopefully get a glimpse into the writer taking shape, before his style was cemented into a cultural touchstone. Was he always the master of horror, or was there a simpler time when he was as messy and weird as the rest of us? All it takes is turning the page to find out.
Of the 20 stories selected for this anthology, four of them were listed as “unreleased.” It makes sense to open your first collection with something that has been built into your brief reputation. At the time of “Night Shift,” King had only published four novels under his name – five when including his pseudonym Richard Bachman with the controversial “Rage” – and had only one film adaptation in Carrie (1976) to his credit. It’s safe to say that in 1978, he had yet to earn his status as “The Master of Horror™” despite having published fiction since 1959. That may explain why the introduction to “Night Shift" felt like a genuine celebration of genre, but also had some level of overcompensation on King’s part to intellectualize his pursuits. I respect his effort this time because it still felt like he could be a flash in the pan, another horror writer who fizzled out after a decade of relevancy.
That feeling carries over to “Jerusalem’s Lot.” In later interviews, King would suggest that he loved his sophomore release, “‘Salem’s Lot,” the most and was eager to expand on its potential. Without jumping too far ahead, this could be seen prominently in “Night Shift,” where, along with its inaugural entry, the vampire narrative is given a sequel of sorts with “One For the Road.” At the time, it felt like this would be King’s biggest franchise, that he would extrapolate detail until he had populated the whole town with memorable side stories. He would write an extensive history and make his own grungy horror version of William Faulkner’s famous Yoknapatawpha County. While I am not experienced enough with the author’s early catalog to know for sure if this is his first “shared universe,” it does feel like this is the first one to get significant attention. Along with comments from King about wanting to make a sequel – elements of which were incorporated into later entries of his larger opus “The Dark Tower” – it makes sense that he would be much too precious about “Jerusalem’s Lot” and make it not only the starting point, but also the lengthiest as well as most distractingly stylized.
What little I know of early King reminds me of any author whose career is still in its fledgling state. There is this overzealous need to “find your voice” by pushing style boundaries and playing with formats. Outside of my feelings for the story, it feels closer to a gimmick than anything sincere. I understand that’s a dumb thing to say about someone who wasn’t far off from writing a book about a killer car, let alone as an extension of a vampire narrative, but I’m not sure that the visceral impact fully lands for me because of its stuffy format. While I think it ultimately lands in a satisfying place, this is a 53-page story that drags on, feeling stuffy in the wrong ways and feeling more intentional in pleasing fans of “Salem’s Lot.” As someone who hasn’t read it, I’m not sure what correlations I should be looking for, but this is a story with primitive ideas that would’ve been more effective at possibly half the length.
I understand this is not a popular opinion, but knowing where King’s career would take him, this work feels rudimentary. Even so, I recognize that this follows in a pattern with the author’s debut work “Carrie,” which found him cribbing once again from Faulkner by using a multiple-perspective narrative to discuss the curious case of an angry psychic girl. There is value in breaking everything down to interiority without making an explicit first-person perspective. There’s room to doubt the narrator and even understand invisible details. Large parts of “Jerusalem’s Lot” exist in that world of deep-rooted obsession, and I think the novelty of the epistolary form allows him to take more risks with the form. Even if it centers largely around protagonist Charles Boone, there’s room for others to take center stage, including through diary entries as well as a final reveal that the man presenting the information is far in the future, suggesting that the central family curse has yet to be resolved.
For starters, the epistolary form is an intriguing idea for a narrative like this for one reason. Given that “‘Salem’s Lot” centered around vampires and King compared the novel to Dracula-meets-Peyton Place, it makes sense for him to ape Bram Stoker’s style. Even so, I don’t think he escapes the novelty of the form even as he perfectly works the slow reveal that drags the reader along until they feel a complete discomfort. The nature of legacy and supernatural fears also feels reminiscent of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” and the elements of reading a book to unleash an unstoppable force have been said to be inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Maybe that is why this feels more novelty. King’s era is ultimately the late 20th century during his lifetime, and I feel like his effort to retrofit his perspective onto the 19th century, while interesting, ultimately comes across as a tribute to other writers.
To provide some defense, this isn’t a terrible story. While I found the pacing to be at times glacial, King had designed the text to sneak up on the reader until they have no choice but to engage with the eeriness. This is about the comfort of sitting down in a chair and slowly noticing the room is full of traps. That may be why the first dozen pages especially didn’t work for me. They are designed to establish Boone’s relationship with the larger story. Given that this is a prequel to “‘Salem’s Lot,” there are no expectations of what’s to come. He’s journeying to Chapelwaite and discussing his pursuits with manservant Calvin McCann and a person named “Bones.” The addressed name is the first piece of macabre humor that lets the reader know that something unsettling is on the way.
From there, Boone’s story becomes a study of a family house and a curiosity about an already haunted house. Whereas it would seem unsettling by 1978, the fact that it felt disturbing in 1850 allows for some curiosity to emerge. There’s perversity to move forward through the Daphne Du Maurier type language as the house consumes his fascination. Rats are running around, and there are small alterations to the home that make Boone paranoid. While I’d argue that Shirley Jackson more effectively conveys the shifts of a building on one’s psychology, King leads his protagonist to a self-inflicted doom. There’s nothing that should keep things moving forward. There’s this morbid curiosity that’s not dissimilar from the introduction to “Night Shift,” where it feels more designed as permission for the reader to dwell in the darkness. Your heart races as one letter ends and new information is presented.
It’s all good until overthinking the structure. Whereas some elements make sense, there’s a question of why this needed to be presented through letters. Long passages lose the formalities and turn into more conventional narratives in order to convey the disturbing nature. The reader is also left to ask why this man is documenting so much that feels a bit too level-headed. There’s no sense of a fractured psychology taking shape. He is paranoid, yes, but how? Too much feels clinical, as if lacking connection to the environment.
The final stretch is where the story really lands any emotional weight. Having invested significant pages exploring legacy and the uncomfortable itchiness, it’s nice to see King get to the heart of what he wanted to explore. It’s a discussion of family curse and what it takes to end the struggle. Along with some delightful details surrounding the central monster, the final fate of Boone seems like it should be the end. And yet, that’s not the conclusion. There are still a few pages left, and it leaves readers wondering what the twist will be. It doesn’t become clear until the last page that Boone’s sacrifice was all for naught, as his father had a bastard son who is keeping the horrors alive. It’s here where everything warrants its misdirects and glacial pacing, hiding something even more nefarious outside the epistolary structure. Having some removal from the center allows for an outside force to manipulate the narrative and reshape how readers see the prose.
My issue with this story is not dissimilar from how some musicians will release a greatest hits record with some new songs. While there are chances of them being great, there’s always something that feels more obligatory or isolated from the intentions that the remaining collection carries. Reading “Jerusalem’s Lot” is a head scratcher, not because it’s bad, but there’s this sense of misplacement where it couldn’t fit anywhere else. Did it need to be 53 pages? No. I’m choosing to believe it’s more because of the goodwill that the novel produced, that people were clamoring for more in this universe. It’s enough of a creative detour to warrant the thought experiment, but I’m under the impression that everything else feels zippier, intentionally taut so that it can work in the various publications they were written for. “Jerusalem’s Lot” can’t help but feel like a victory lap indulgence, and that’s fine. It doesn’t feel particularly essential, but at least it captures King’s voracious appetite to play with style.
With that said, it wouldn’t be a King story if it didn’t have a larger legacy. While I plan to do more extensive coverage of media related to “‘Salem’s Lot,” it’s important to note that “Jerusalem’s Lot” has its own interpretations attached. Artist Glenn Chadbourne created a collection of animated King stories called “The Secretary of Dreams” that included “Jerusalem’s Lot” in 2006. Another prominent adaptation came with the 2021 Epix series Chapelwaite, which was a miniseries that focused exclusively on the short story and starred Adrien Brody as Charles Boone. The Dark Tower series would also feature the continuation of certain themes of “Jerusalem’s Lot” while also serving as the reasoning for why King never went through with making a proper sequel. The name Jerusalem’s Lot has also appeared in various works, including “The Body” and “Pet Sematary,” where it’s mostly been referred to as an odd name for a place.
No matter how indifferent I am to the premiere entry of this column, I remain ecstatic to see what Stephen King’s first short story collection will turn out to be. Given that almost every story here has had some sort of adaptation, it’s a promising announcement of an author who had yet to really develop his reputation. At most, he had written a few chilly novels that were getting to the heart of 1970s fears. Even if “Jerusalem’s Lot” feels stylistically disingenuous, there’s a lot of promise in how he presents detail, managing to surprise the reader and bring them into a world of uncertainty. For as much as this feels like too turgid a start for an anthology, it fits with understanding where King was this early in his career. He still needed to prove himself, and that drive never ceases to take him into odd recesses of the imagination.
Coming Up Next: “Graveyard Shift”
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