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The Talisman (1984 novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Author | Stephen King, Peter Straub |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, Horror novel |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Publication date | 1984 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 672 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-69199-2 |
| Followed by | Black House |
The Talisman is a 1984 fantasy novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The plot is not a reworking of the earlier Walter Scott book also titled The Talisman, although there is one oblique reference to "a Sir Walter Scott novel".
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This book charts the adventure of a twelve year old boy named Jack Sawyer. The young hero sets out from Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire in a bid to save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by finding an artifact called 'The Talisman'.
The premise of the novel involves the existence of a parallel world to Earth, called 'The Territories' (a strange fantasy world with ties to King's The Dark Tower). Individuals in the Territories have "twinners," or parallel individuals, in our world. Twinners' births, deaths, and (it is intimated) other major life events are usually paralleled, but in rare instances (such as Jack Sawyer's), a person may die in one world but not the other, making them "single-natured" and giving them the ability to switch back and forth between the two worlds if taught how. Jack is taught how to 'flip' by a mysterious figure known as Speedy Parker, who may be a gunslinger named Parkus in the Territories.
Werewolves, known simply as Wolfs, inhabit the Territories but these are not the wild killers of tradition. They serve as royal herdsmen or bodyguards, and can sometimes under stress voluntarily change to wolf form. A sixteen-year-old Wolf, simply named Wolf, is accidentally pulled into America by Jack Sawyer and adopts Jack as his herd, serving as his companion. Wolf is extremely likeable, kind, loyal and friendly, much like a dog, though his wolf nature shows through on occasion.
By splitting the story between the Territories and the familiar United States, or 'American Territories' as Jack comes to call them, King and Straub are able to constantly throw Jack from the frying pan to the fire, as he escapes from one life-threatening situation to another. Accompanied by Wolf and later by his childhood friend Richard, Jack must retrieve the Talisman before it falls into the hands of evil schemer Morgan Sloat, Richard's father, who, we later learn, was Jack's father's business partner before arranging to have the latter murdered.
King and Straub followed up in 2001 with a sequel, Black House, that picks up with Jack as a retired Los Angeles homicide detective trying to solve a series of murders in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin. A third book is expected to follow.
The idea of writing "The Talisman" first took form when Stephen King moved with his family to London in early 1977. It was there he met Peter and Susan Straub, along with their children, and the two writers became friends, both being fans of each other's work. After a short friendship, King and his family left after only three months back to the United States. Straub and King had talked multiple times before about collaborating to write a book, but nothing ever surfaced until ten years after King moved back, when the Straubs moved to the United States as well. According to King, after Straub moved, "the talk got serious," and they began writing. Their literary friendship did not end after the publication of "The Talisman". In 1999 they began working on a sequal to "The Talisman", dealing with Jack Sawyer as an adult. It was published in 2001, entitled Black House.
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (July 2007) |
When Jack "flips", he finds himself in a parallel world, which is physically smaller than the world from which he comes. Throughout the course of the novel, Jack uses the size differential as a method to travel quickly across the country. The western region of the Territories is a destroyed area known as the Blasted Lands.
Where Jack begins his quest and meets Speedy Parker.
When Jack and Wolf are accused of mischievous "hitchhiking" and "trouble-making" by a highway police officer, their only punishment by the court is to go to a camp for the troubled youth ran by Sunlight Gardner/Osmond.
The television network TNT recently announced it would be adapting The Talisman into a six-part mini-series, which is expected to air during the summer of 2008. Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy will be collaborating on the miniseries project. [1] [2]
- The Talisman at the Internet Movie Database
- Database containing descriptive bibliography, publishing history, reviews, and literary criticism of King and Straub's The Talisman