Critical Reception
In his short story collection A Century of Great Suspense Stories, editor Jeffrey Deaver noted that King “singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He’s often remarked that 'Salem's Lot was “Peyton Place meets Dracula.” And so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampirism and make them fresh again.
Read more about this topic: 'Salem's Lot
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)