'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

‘Salem’s Lot
by Stephen King
Copyright 1975

‘Salem’s Lot was Stephen King’s second published novel. In it, we see King take a giant leap forward from the author who penned the engaging, yet straightforward Carrie to an author with a knack for telling a complex story with deep, rich characters.

Perhaps what King does better than any other writer is develop the character of a town, melding its inhabitants into something greater than the sum of its parts. We saw him do this with Castle Rock, Maine in The Dead Zone, Cujo, and Needful Things.

We also saw him do it with Derry, Maine in IT and Insomnia. Before those fictional municipalities of horror, however, was Jerusalem’s Lot, or ‘Salem’s Lot as the locals called it. In the book of the same name, he builds the various characters that make up the town of ‘Salem’s Lot, then lays waste to it.

The story is a standard vampire story. All of the traditional mythos first put into fiction by Bram Stoker in Dracula and carried forward by writers and filmmakers for more than a century are left intact. King transports the vampire mythos from central Europe to New England of the American 1970s.

Writer Ben Mears returns to the small New England town where he spent several years as a youth. He comes seeking inspiration for a new book and to confront demons from his past. Both can be found in the Marsten Houe – and old mansion on a hill overlooking ‘Salem’s Lot. There, as a child, he experienced a ghastly fright when, as a child he entered the house on a dare, only to see the ghost of the house’s owner, Hubey Marsten, hanging by his neck.

Mears comes to ‘Salem’s Lot to rent and live in the old Marsten house. He finds that he is not the only new resident in town. Prior to his arrival, a pair of elderly European gentlemen purchased the home and leased a vacant storefront with the stated purpose of renovating the mansion and selling antiques in town.

Soon, bad things start to happen in the Lot. First, a dog is killed and put on display at the village cemetery. Then, a young boy is attacked by an unknown creature and disappears into the woods. Soon, the whole town falls victim to the vampire Barlow, leaving Ben Mears and young Mark Petrie – a boy of just 10 – to rid New England of an ancient evil.

‘Salem’s Lot was the first novel many King fans read and for many, it’s their favorite. Most serious fans of King’s work rank it below more terrifying and better written classics such as The Stand, It, and The Talisman

King is not the first writer to bring vampires to the United States. Richard Matheson did it in I Am Legend in 1954. But Matheson’s “vampires” more closely resembled zombies than the classic vampire portrayed by Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Matheson’s creatures were intellectually stunted – not the devilishly clever beings of Stoker.

For just his second published work, King shows great maturity in forging the town and developing four or five strong characters – taking them through their arcs and leaving them dead or appreciably altered.

For the purposes of The Dark Tower, the Catholic priest, Father Callahan is important. In their apocalyptic encounter in the living room of the Petrie home, Father Callahan is left uninjured. But his faith is shattered Barlow marks him as God marked Cain. He leaves town in shame under the dead of night. It’s hard to believe that King envisioned Callahan making an appearance in The Dark Tower almost three decades later, but he was prescient when he wrote,

He would pray. Pray all night, if necessary. Not to the new God. Not to the God of ghettos and social conscience and free lunches. But to the God of old, who had proclaimed through Moses not to suffer a witch to live and who had given it to unto his own son to raise the dead. All my life for penance. Only. . . a second chance.

Callahan’s faith failed him in his confrontation with Barlow and Barlow let him live because he knew that moment of doubt would cause him a lifetime of pain.

Callahan will find his penance and redemption in another time in another world in Roland Duschain’s pursuit of the Dark Tower.

‘Salem’s Lot was written many years before the scope of King’s grand vision would take shape. It contributes nothing to the plot of the Dark Tower saga. It was written as a stand-alone novel and serves to introduce one of the characters in the story who emerges approximately half way through its telling. Nonetheless, time spent reading 'Salem’s Lot for the sheer joy of enjoying quality horror fiction was time well spent.

‘Salem’s Lot has twice been made into television movies. The first was broadcast in 1979, directed by Tobe Hooper and starred David Soul. The remake was done in 2004 by Mikael Salomon and starred Rob Lowe.

The Dark Tower: An Introduction

The Dark Tower: An Introduction

Stephen King was not my introduction to horror fiction. Nor was it King who led me to embrace horror fiction as my favorite literature. King is my favorite writer and the most prolific writer of horror fiction in history. King tells an interesting story; tells it well in a blue collar voice that is free of pretension, yet not lacking in flair.

I’ve read all of King’s work at least twice. But it’s been more than 10 years since I’ve visited his early material. I’ve decided to temporarily ignore all of the unread books on my bookshelves and delve deep into King.

My favorite King tale is his post-apocalyptic magnum opus, The Stand. The Stand is just one chapter of an epic mulit-volume tale that spans Stephen King’s entire career – the story of The Dark Tower.

The Dark Tower story is told in six volumes that chronicle Roland Deschain’s quest to find a dark edifice of which he knows nothing except that he must find it. Roland’s story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that follows The Stand.

There are several novels that are tangential to the Dark Tower. ‘Salem’s Lot – King’s second novel – is the earliest of these. In this book, the character of Father Callahan is introduced. Later in the series, Callahan and the actual novel itself play an important role.

The Stand is a prequel. The destruction of society and the loss of 2/3 of the world’s population sets the stage for the Dark Tower, set thousands of years in the future.

The Eye of the Dragon – not a favorite of most serious King fans – is also a prequel for The Dark Tower and The Stand. Along with its mildly entertaining story, it provides a character study of Randall Flagg – the villain of The Stand. It takes place centuries before Flagg was tormenting Mother Abigail and her followers.

Other King novels provide insight into the many planes of existence within the world of The Dark Tower. These include, It, The Talisman and its sequel The Black House, Insomnia, Rose Madder, Hearts in Atlantis, and From a Buick 8.

I’ve just completed ‘Salem’s Lot and will post a review soon. I will also post reviews of the two made-for-television adaptations of this stellar King novel. I’m preparing to tackle The Stand which “stands” as my all time favorite novel – all 1,100 pages of it!

It's been six years since I completed The Dark Tower series. When I read the voluminous final installments, it was upon publication -- leaving no time to go back and read the entire story over again to refresh my memory. Now, the whole tale is told and I can read it seamlessly from beginning to end.

Since The Dark Tower stands with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy as my favorite story, I've decided not to revisit it -- but to move in with it and make it the focal point of most of my reading for however long it takes me to finish it. I'm going to read each book in the epic in the order in which it was published to take in the story as one huge feast. I am looking forward to it as much as I look forward to an extended visit with an old friend.

Alone with the Horrors by Ramsey Campbell

Alone with the Horrors
By Ramsey Campbell
Copyright 1991

This anthology of Ramsey Campbell short stories spans his career from the early 1960s through 1991.

The Tower of Yuggoth
Campbell delves directly into the Cthulu mythos in this tale about a young man’s tireless quest to find the origins of strange aquatic life inhabiting the woods in New England. As a teenager, he finds strange books in his parents’ home library that lead him first to Miskatonic University to read from the unholy book, The Necronomicon. He then heads off into the Maine woods to find the strange tower and it secrets it reveals about an unholy species coexisting with man.

Still imitating Lovecraft here, but getting better at it . . .

Cold Print
A man with a passion for “odd” books is guided to an out-of-the-way bookstore where he finds a treasure trove of his kind of literature. He soon finds himself prisoner of this literature – and its purveyor.

Campbell is taking his first tentative steps away from Lovecraft, establishing his own voice. The story is not particularly strong or frightening, but he’s improving.

The Scar
A family man’s brother in law tells him that he’s seen his double on a train near Liverpool, meaning the man is about to die. The only dissimilarity, according to the brother in law, is a long scar from the man’s temple to the base of his neck. A few days later, the man is attacked in an alley and disfigured – leaving him with a scar on his face. He undergoes a rapid personality change, so the brother-in-law takes him back to the scene of the crime to try to help him – with disastrous results.

I read this story three times and I still did not get the climax. This tale is not well told at all. The characters are uninspired and the story simply doesn’t make sense.

The Interloper
Four English boarding school students enter the catacombs that run beneath their school and find a familiar presence in their lives is actually a subterranean dweller.

The story shifts points of view about 800 words in and is quite confusing. It is not engaging, scary, or even interesting.

The Guy
The narrator is a teenage boy who decides to hang out with a troubled and shy youth who has an incredibly guilty conscience about a horrifying accident many years ago. As they prepare to celebrate “Guy Fawkes Day”, that guilt comes to a head.

At least this story was coherent. It was not, however, particularly interesting.

The End of a Summer’s Day
A woman and her husband go on a tour of a cave. She becomes terrified and inexplicably discovers her husband is blind. She endures the taunts of the tour group and guide as she tries to figure out how to get them out.

If this story had a point, I didn’t get it. Kafka authored an inexplicable transition in Metamorphosis, but at least that story of alienation was engaging and the allegory apparent. Campbell’s prose is anything but engaging and his character development is horrible, even for a short story.

The Man in the Underpass
A school girl becomes fascinated with a graffito man painted on a Liverpool underpass near her school. Soon, small pets begin to disappear and the girl’s friends become increasingly terrified.

Finally, we have a coherent story with a couple developed characters. The plot is original and its climax worthwhile.

The Companion
A writer spends his spare time exploring the various carnivals and amusement parks of England. He finds one that harbors a dark secret.

Ray Bradbury already told this story in Something Wicked This Way Comes and did a much better job at it. I want back the ten minutes it took me to read this incomprehensible tripe.


Call First
A librarian is fascinated by a patron’s daily ritual of calling home before he leaves the library – intoning without emotion “I’m coming home.” The librarian decides to see what the old man is going home to and finds a most unusual security system.

Campbell delivers a fantastic story with an unexpected conclusion. The story is taut and well paced.

In the Bag
A school administrator lays down a harsh punishment when students place a plastic bag over his son’s head, causing him to almost suffocate. When he gets home, he finds out how little the students appreciated the punishment.

This is a dull and predictable story. However, it managed to win a British literature award which might be telling of the quality of British fantasy and horror of the 1970s. . .

Baby
A Liverpool drunk becomes fascinated with an old woman and her pets. He follows her around the neighborhood as she pushes her shopping cart, believing that she might actually be rich and eccentric. He finds out the creatures with which she lives are not actually pets.

The Chimney
A paranoid youth develops a strong loathing of the fireplace in his room. Night after night, his fear slowly and inexplicably builds. He begins to fear Father Christmas himself because he comes down the chimney to deliver his presents. His fear of Santa is prescient as he finds out in the end.

This is one of Campbell’s more sympathetic characters. As a youth who was sometimes inexplicably terrified of household fixtures (my first home had a fallout shelter that terrified me) I could definitely sympathize. Campbell delivers his first real plot twist hear and it’s pretty good. This story would have worked as a “Night Gallery” script.

The Brood
A Liverpool apartment dweller develops a fascination for an ancient crone who hangs out under a streetlight at night outside his apartment. He follows her to her home and explores her apartment building where he finds her horrific secret.

This story is better than most in this collection, which isn’t saying much. It was incredibly average. The character development was not bad.

The Gap
A writer with a fascination with jigsaw puzzles has some friends as overnight guests. They bring along another writer who is an expert at witchcraft. After an unpleasant exchange over dinner, the writer receives a gift from his adversary – a puzzle with one piece missing. . .

Here, Campbell builds to a degree the strong dread that Lovecraft evokes with his writing without directly imitating Lovecraft’s prose. This was a satisfying story.

The Voice of the Beach
A man invites a friend to spend some time with him at his beachfront cottage. While walking along the beach, they discover what appears to be the remains of a small town made entirely of stone. Inside the ruins they discover a diary of a former inhabitant of the town. The hero’s companion becomes obsessed with the diary and the ruins. The hero falls ill and is left to ponder the constantly shifting sands of the beach. Both go insane for their own reasons.

The stone ruins evoke the same mood Lovecraft establishes in several of his stories – most notably “The Call of Cthulu.” His distortion of space is purely Lovecraftian. Of his attempts to imitate Lovecraft, Campbell does his best work here. He creates the fear and dread without showing you the evil, but he’s now writing in his own voice instead of copying Lovecraft’s style – which is best left to Lovecraft.

Out of Copyright
A publisher of anthologies is prone to stealing and rewriting the works of published authors without paying royalties. He finally steals from the wrong author and pays the consequences.

Campbell is living out an author’s fantasy here. Slaying publishers and editors is something that lies in the darkest wells of the souls of writers. Campbell says he had no particular anthologist in mind when he wrote it, but Ray Bradbury apparently recognized the target, according to Campbell.

Above the World
A writer returns to the hotel where he and his former wife honeymooned. She and her new husband have just died in an accident. He strays from the beaten path into the wooded mountains. There, he finds the unpleasant answers to many questions.

This story is written in the style that made me want to read Campbell in the first place. The man can create a vivid scene like no one I’ve ever read. His descriptions of the woods and the mountains rival Tolkien in their grandeur.

Mackintosh Willy
A homeless drunk torments kids in a park who dare to venture near the underpass where he lives. One day, he ends up dead. The kid everyone suspects killed Willy becomes the object of desire for an adolescent girl. There final date ends in tragedy when Willy gets his revenge.

There’s nothing original here. The characters are not engaging and the story is an oft-told tale of ghostly revenge.

The Show Goes On
A shopkeeper is convinced that burglars are entering his store through the abandoned theater next door. He decides to enter the theater at night and preempt their thievery. As he moves about the creepy movie palace, he finds that, while the theater may be abandoned by the living, some performers and audiences do go on after death.

This is a well written haunted house story. The concept of a haunted theater is not particularly original. However, Campbell makes the best of a recycled idea. The theater becomes a maze in which the hero becomes lost. Campbell builds the terror nicely.

The Ferries
An urbane Londoner travels to a seaside town to bring his dying uncle to his home in London. His uncle, at death’s door, recounts a voyage where he and his shipmates encounter a ghost ship. His uncle dies and the man takes home with him a bottle he finds on the beach near his uncle’s house.

A ship in a bottle serves as a talisman of evil. That’s pretty original and Campbell develops his story and his character well.

Midnight Hobo
A late night radio host becomes obsessed with what he is sure is an evil creature that lurks under an overpass near his home. He avoids the overpass when he walks to work and has nightmares after finding the remains of a cat that has been torn to pieces. Like the teenagers in the prototypical slasher film, he just has to see what it is down there.

Like “Three Billy Goats’ Gruff,” the terror living under the bridge figures into a lot of Campbell’s horror. It’s interesting to read Campbell’s work develop from his earlier stories that seemed to have no point when they ended to one where he wraps up a horror story masterfully. In this story, Campbell shows that the hero need not die at the end for the story to be scary.

The Depths
An author tortured by writer’s block rents a house that was the scene of grisly murders. Upon leaving, he finds that he is able to predict ghastly crimes before they happen. What’s worse, the murder rate in his neighborhood is soaring!

I love this tale because it keeps you guessing. I developed two hypotheses about the character that were shot down as I read and was surprised by the ending.

Down There
A woman and a male coworker are working late in a high rise building with only one working elevator. The building has a colorful past and an oddly cavernous sub-basement. She and her coworker try to make the elevator work correctly to leave the building, but end up in that strange sub-basement which was stocked with unholy terrors by its builder.

Campbell has a great concept here, but really misses the mark in character development. I love a plot-driven story, but Campbell doesn’t put any effort into making either of the characters sympathetic or unsympathetic. They’re just “there” for the action to revolve around.

The Fit
A pubescent boy spends the summer with his aunt who works as a seamstress in rural England. Delivered to his aunt are two dresses to be altered. The dresses are made by a strange hag who lives in a one room cottage in the woods. The strange fabric has human hair woven into it. After reluctantly working on the dresses, his aunt is haunted by her work and it is up to her nephew to save her.

Great character development here with the adolescent boy (one must believe that Ramsey Campbell was once an adolescent boy). The story is an original concept as well and builds to a nice climax.

Hearing is Believing
A man is tormented by the sound of rain that comes from his expensive stereo. At first he is merely annoyed at not being able to enjoy his music. But the sound of rain in his small house dominates his waking and sleeping hours.

This is the first fiction haunted stereo story I’ve ever read. Keep in mind the true story of Ron DeFeo who is notorious for having murdered his family in Amityville, NY after he heard a voice in his stereo telling him to do it. A few more pages of story and character development might have made this fair story good.

The Hands
A man is talked into entering a church to take a survey. After being led to a room to fill out the survey, he finds himself trapped in a shifting maze and strange pursuers.

Think “Hotel California” set in an old English church. “Hotel California” is a better short story than this mess. This is the worst story in the second half of the book.

Again
A man hiking along a park trail happens upon a cabin and an old crone who has apparently locked herself out of her home. The man obliges her and crawls through a window to unlock the door. Inside, he finds the cottage to be a small house of horrors and discovers the crone’s dark secret.

This is the first I’ve seen Campbell delve deeply into tales of the undead. He sets the scene masterfully with his descriptive prose and drives the story forward in a well paced narrative.

Just Waiting
A quarreling couple take their young son into the woods on a picnic. During the hike, his parents argue constantly and make the boy miserable. When they arrive at the glade where they plan to hold their picnic, they find a very formal wait staff catering to them. . . and to the boy’s escape fantasies.

There’s more than a touch of absurdity to the story. The main character is a sympathetic tyke and his parents bores. You can’t help but feel good for him in the end.

Seeing the World
Richard and Angela’s annoying neighbors insist that they come over and see their slides of their latest Greek vacation. Some neighbors are annoying, and some have evil inhabitants lurking in the basement of their homes!

Not a strong story. The characters were well developed – especially the annoying neighbor that just insists on showing slides. But the terror is almost tacked on and really tangential to the tale.

Old Clothes
A mover “acquires” an old coat while emptying the home of a dead spiritualist. Soon, treasures start appearing in the coat’s pockets. Like most treasures in horror stories, these bring consequences. The mover finds he can’t lose the coat.

A rather unsatisfying story with a good character. Maybe Campbell undertook one too many haunted garment stories in as much as Stephen King undertook one too many haunted car stories.

Apples
A childish prank of stealing apples from the neighborhood crank ends badly for children on Halloween night

For Campbell, this was a rather light tale like one might encounter in a comic book It was thoroughly enjoyable.

The Other Side
A schoomaster is taunted by prank phone calls from his students and a capering clown that he can see from his apartment window that affords a view of the “other side of the tracks.” When he observes one of his female tormentors in danger, he ventures to the other side of the tracks and confronts the monster.

Again, as Campbell is wont to do, he lost me in the climax. I reread it several times and ended up saying, “so what?” I just didn’t care to ponder it anymore.

Where the Heart Is
A recent widower whose wife and child died in childbirth sells the home they shared and falls into a deep depression after closing. Keeping a key for himself, he visits and observes their various renovations before ending his despair.

There’s not much of a supernatural element to this story; just tremendous sadness. Campbell establishes this mood nicely. It’s a well told, sad tale of loss.

Boiled Alive
A dull payroll manager in a British factory starts receiving strange phone calls inquiring if he is Dr. Doncaster. He soon finds out that he is living out the plot of a bad movie. After having seen the movie and its ending, he must decide whether to maintain his tenuous grip on reality or to become the film’s hero.

This story had a nice element of unpredictability, a well written climax, and just the right amount of uncertainty as to the outcome.

Another World
A man lives a life of total seclusion, hidden away from the real world by his ultra religious father. When his father dies, he has to venture out to see that his father’s remains are taken care of. He finds the world a much more unwholesome place than he ever dreamed.

This is a variation on Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” where the man, pure of heart, ventures into the dark foreboding forest (or in this case, city) to confront and be tempted by evil. Campbell gives us far less resolution to his story than did Hawthorne.

End of the Line
A telemarketer selling videophones always opens his sales pitch with, “I bet you wish you could see my face.” Apparently, he is unable to see the faces of his friends and associates.

For some reason, Campbell thought there was some humor in here somewhere. I found no humor – just a series of random sentences marching across the landscape in search of a plot. What a useless story with which to end an anthology that chronicles his life’s work up until 1991.

Herbert Hoover by Eugene Lyons

Herbert Hoover
by Eugene Lyons
Copyright 1948

Eugene Lyons was the editor of Readers Digest in the 1950s. Before his conversion to Republicanism, he was a strong and ardent believer in the socialist utopia. As a reborn conservative, however, he was quite sympathetic to Herbert Hoover and this biography, while informative and well written, is rather one sided and a defense of Hoover the man and his policies.

Like Richard Nixon, Hoover was a Quaker. The Hoover family roots can be traced to Miami, Ohio where Hoover's grandfather settled in the Western Reserve in 1802. Hoover's father would take the family further west to Cedar County, Iowa where Herbert Hoover was born and raised in a Quaker village where plain English (full of "thees" and "thous") was routinely spoken. His Quaker upbringing would set the stage for Herbert Hoover who, before his presidency, was known as the world's greatest humanitarian.

Educated at the brand new Stanford University, Hoover excelled in his study of mining engineering. It was there that he met his bride, Lou Henry, who would follow him across the globe.

Hoover went to work for various mining companies and had an uncanny knack for knowing where to find various ores and minerals. He made a small fortune in mining before he took up public service as his life's work.

Time and place are the essence of successful politics and Hoover was in the right place at the right time to make a name for himself. He was in London with his family on business when the fateful shot in Sarejevo was fired to start World War I. The American Ambassador to the Court of St. James called on Hoover to help him assist American tourists who were now fleeing Europe in droves. Hoover's brilliant ability to organize and plan massive events was revealed for the first time when he was able to mobilize resources and transport thousands of Americans out of Europe.

During World War I, Hoover dedicated himself to feeding the starving millions of Europe who were displaced by the war. His famine fighting efforts in Belgium, approved by both the German and American governments would earn him international acclaim.

He began his formal government service in the cabinet of Warren Harding as the Secretary of Commerce. What is interesting about his approach to commerce in the cabinets of both Harding and Calvin Coolidge was he was generally regarded as a liberal within the Republican Party. He sought and occasionally won victories over the "stand-patters" who endorsed unfettered capitalism. He wanted to regulate advertising to assure that it at least contained a modicum of truth. He also recognized the rappant speculation in the stock market by those traders buying on margin before Coolidge and most economists. While he recognized it, he wasn't able to do much about it. But he was far from the cold, taciturn promulgator of "rugged individualism" that history portrays. In fact, he recognized the need for at least modest government oversight and regulation of the economy.

He was the brightest star in the Coolidge cabinet and therefore, the leading contender for the Republican nomination in 1928. First, he had to be sure the enigmatic Coolidge was not going to seek a second full term. Coolidge did allow his name to be placed on the Ohio primary ballot, but this was probably to stem the budding candidacy of Ohio senator Frank Willis who was hoping to ride favorite son status into the convention on a dark horse platform. However, a stroke would fell Willis before the primary. (Willis' last speech was delivered in the Toledo Civic Auditorium, known today as the Erie Street Market. He would die the next day at Ohio Wesleyan University).

Lyons quotes Arthur Schlesinger's eulogy of John Kennedy when he said, "No man had been elected President of the United States who had not schemed and labored to be there." While I am not the presidential scholar that Schlesinger was, I agree with Lyons when he asserts that Schlesinger had forgotten Herbert Hoover (as well as Harry Truman). Hoover had no political machine. He had no base and he went into the Republican convention in Kansas City with few primary delegates. However, he was the most popular man in America and was selected by the delegates based entirely on his reputation as an organizational man who could get things done.

Hoover was a boring speaker. He tended to deliver lectures and was a techno-cratic detail man long before Jimmy Carter. His opponent, Al Smith of New York was a loud, boisterous cheerleader who excited crowds. The 1928 election was nearly a replay of the 1896 and 1900 elections between the reserved William McKinley who campaigned from his front porch whilst the bombastic William Jennings Bryan shouted that he would not have the nation die on a cross of gold.

Republicanism had reached its apex in 1928 following more than 10 years of prosperity and peace and Hoover won an easy election over Smith. For Hoover, it would be all down hill from there.

Here, we should compare Hoover to Carter and their successors, Roosevelt and Reagan. Hoover had a much stronger understanding of public policy and the machinery of government than did Roosevelt. The same can be said of Carter versus Reagan. However, when our nation faces a crisis, they need leadership they can believe in and neither the uninspiring Hoover, nor the timid Jimmy Carter were up to the task where Roosevelt and Reagan led the nation back to prosperity -- not through government programs -- but through inspiring leadership.

The causes of the Great Depression are many and the subjects of volumes of books. Obviously, the 1929 stock market crash was a factor, as was the bass-ackwards international debt structure created by the need of the victors to claim reparations from vanquished Germany, an economy that was based almost entirely on building homes and consumer goods, and drought conditions across the Midwest. Whatever the cause, Hoover mobilized the forces of government to fight it.

Any student of the presidency will tell you that presidents receive way too much credit and too much blame for bad economic times. History today still puts the Great Depression on the shoulders of Coolidge and Hoover. People also over-estimate the president's ability to fix what ails the economy. Despite a litany of employment programs, food programs, and economic plans, Hoover could not get the U.S. economy out of its slump which now affected the entire world. The election of a Democratic Congress in 1930 hindered Hoover's efforts as the new Democrats were determined to deliver a knock-out punch to a president who was on the ropes.

History paints Hoover as standing idle while the nation suffered and homeless resided in Hoovervilles -- tar paper shacks in slum neighborhoods. (For those who are interested in Toledo history, know that Toledo was the hardest hit city in the nation by the Great Depression and a large Hooverville with several hundred people sprang up along the Maumee River where the Port Authority offices are located all the way down to where the Craig Bridge lands on the west bank). Lyons points out that the nation had weathered similar depressions in the administrations of Van Buren, Buchanan, Grant, Cleveland, and Teddy Roosevelt. Each had its own set of causes and circumstances, yet the federal government took no action to deal with those crises and the economy eventually recovered in short order. While the father of federal intervention in the economy was Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover took it to a level never imagined by his predecessors. For all of his work and anguish, the country continued to suffer.

The Great Depression is a historic term used to describe the years 1929 - 1941. However, the circumstances that mitigated and exacerbated the Depression changed over the years. There were, at times, strong signs of recovery, only to be met with further downturns. The worst years were 1931 - 1932 which did not bode well for the president facing re-election.

Franklin Roosevelt, Speaker of the House, John Nance Garner, and congressional Democrats were vicious in their attacks on Hoover and probably did more damage to the economy in their campaign than Hoover did with his programs. Lyons points out that the Democrats never attacked Hoover's programs, but instead went after him personally as a cold, uncaring man who was content to let Americans starve. The Democrats were successful in ruining the reputation of the man who had been hailed as the world's greatest humanitarian. Roosevelt defeated Hoover in a landslide and Democrats gained overwhelming control of Congress in 1932.

As most defeated presidents do, Hoover tried to enter "The Wilderness" and stay out of sight and mind before rebuilding his reputation. Franklin Roosevelt, however, made Hoover feel more like a deer hunted in the woods than a man alone in the forest. Not content to defeat the man in an election, Roosevelt and his men continued to attack and besmirch Hoover long after he left office. The powerful Roosevelt was able to distract the nation from the ineffectiveness of his own relief programs by reminding them that Hoover had started the mess he was trying to fix. The petty Roosevelt even removed Hoover's name from Hoover Dam, renaming it Boulder Dam.

Hoover was not a sore loser. Between the election and inauguration, irresponsible statements from Roosevelt cronies triggered a run on banks, causing their collapse. Hoover wanted to work with the president-elect to stem the crisis. He offered to introduce any program that Roosevelt thought would help. Roosevelt remained silent on Hoover's offer, content to let the nation suffer some more before he came in as the conquering hero.

The Roosevelt years were misery for Hoover who valued his reputation as an honest man and humanitarian. As the depression wore on, he bore the brunt of the nation's anger without a pulpit from which to defend himself.

Like the disgraced Richard Nixon, the unpopular Hoover sought and found adoring crowds in Europe where he had nearly saved the continent from its own deprivations. In 1938, he toured Europe and met cheering crowds at every stop except one, Berlin.

In Berlin, Hoover met with Adolph Hitler. It was to be a short, courtesy meeting arranged by the American embassy which was dedicating itself to promoting American neutrality. It turned into a one hour meeting. Coming out of it, Hoover characterized the Fuhrer as an intelligent, lucid man capable of great thought. However, Hitler grew angry and animated when the subjects of Communism and Democracy were raised. Hoover agreed with Hitler on the former and quietly defended the latter. He was ultimately disturbed by what he saw in history's greatest monster.

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Hoover went back to doing what he did best. He organized and ran a myriad of programs to help displaced refugees, feed the starving, and comfort the suffering in Europe. For all of his work throughout the conflict, he received neither acknowledgment nor recognition from Roosevelt.

Roosevelt's death and the rise of Harry Truman gave Hoover his shot at redemption. Truman actually liked Hoover and was willing to deploy his abilities to help the country restore an orderly government in the aftermath of the war. He chaired a bipartisan committee including members of Congress who studied how to restore the nation to a prosperous, peaceful country. His engineer driven technocratic abilities were well suited for this task.

His post-presidential years were busy. He was an active member of the Stanford Board of Directors, served as chairman of the Boys Clubs of America, and completed the aformentioned tour of Europe. Slowly, his standing rose with the American people who, with few exceptions like the drunkard Franklin Pierce and the thoroughly unlikable James Buchanan, slowly warm to and and eventually embrace their elder statesmen. As Truman passed the baton to Ike and resurgent Republicans were in control again, Hoover acquired that elder statesman status. When he died in 1964 at the age of 90, he was mourned by a country that had spent an entire year mourning the deaths of JFK as well as Douglas MacArthur.

Lyons does not incorporate much about Lou Hoover into his biography. He does claim that she was one of the most intelligent and able first ladies to inhabit the White House. She shared her husband's passion for good works and was at his side, helping, at every step of his career. She was a strong backer and served as national chairwoman of the Girl Scouts of America. Like women of her time, she served as a supporter and confidante of her husband.

Hoover's place in history is well defined and unlikely to change. History regards him as a failure and that reputation is somewhat deserved. Like time and place served to launch his political career, time and place ended it. The depression was not of his making, but he failed to resolve it. However, he is not the cold, dispassionate man who dined in high style while America starved as liberal historians would have him portrayed.