salem's lot doubleday & company, inc. salem's lot is a small new england town with white clapboard houses, tree-lined streets, and solid chuck steeples. that summer in "salem's lot was a summer of home-coming and return; spring burned out and the land lying dry, crackling underfoot. late that summer, ben mears returned to 'salem's lot hoping to cast out his own devils and found insterad a new unspeakable horror. a stranger had also come to the lot, a stranger with a severt as old as evil, a secret that would wreak irreparable harm on those he touched and in turn on those they loved. all would be changed forever - susan, whose love for ben could not protect her; father callahan, the bad priest who put his erorded faith to one last test and mark, a young boy who sees his fantash world become reality and ironically proves the best equipped to handle the relentless nightmare of 'salem's lot.'