Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my latest review.
Here is the first in a trilogy of reviews. I’ve had The Talisman and Black House on my shelf for a couple of years, but I’d never read them. With the release of the third and final book in the trilogy, Other Worlds Than These, I decided it was time to change that. So here I go reading the three of them back-to-back-to-back. And these aren’t skinny books. I expect the reading to take at least the rest of the month, and I imagine the third review will creep into November.
I’m often fascinated when two well-known authors collaborate on something. For something that is a solo endeavour (more in the early stages), co-writing must feel alien. Especially for the likes of Stephen King and Peter Straub, who are each so prolific in their own right.
The story goes that they were already fans of each other’s work when they met by chance in London in 1977. They discussed the idea of writing something together, but nothing came to fruition until a few years later when they eventually began work on what became The Talisman. I recently saw a clip of a Stephen King interview where he talked about when he and Straub first worked on this book. He claims that Straub said, “I’m gonna write like you, and you’re gonna write like me. That way, when the book is finished, nobody will be able to tell who wrote what.” I think that’s an absolutely brilliant way of doing things. And now I’m on the other side of this first book, with the exception of one passage in which I have a hunch it was written by King; I certainly couldn’t tell you who wrote what.
The Talisman tells the tale of Jack Sawyer. A twelve-year-old boy who lives with his mother, Lily Cavanagh, who was a B-list movie actress in her day. The two of them are on the run from his late father’s former business partner. Lily is dying from lung cancer, but refuses to acknowledge this or accept any treatment offered to her. Jack realises that he faces the reality of being an orphan if he doesn’t do something.
Through meeting a maintenance man known as Speedy, Jack learns of a place called the Territories. The Territories is a world parallel to our own. It is smaller than our own world, but far more dangerous and inhabited by “twinners” of the people who live in our world. Speedy informs Jack that in the Territories there is a mysterious and magical item known as the Talisman, which can save Jack’s mother. It is believed to be located in the twin version of the Alhambra Hotel. Jack realises he has one hell of a quest ahead of him.
What follows is over 900 pages of Jack’s trek across the country. He has the ability to flip between our world and the Territories. As the Territories are smaller, he could cover more ground in less time, but Jack learns quickly that the world is a dangerous place. He also learns that every time it flips, it causes major repercussions in the real world. For that reason, he tries to travel in our world as much as possible. And there are also other people out there – many of them twinners – who plot to kill Jack and take the Talisman with the intention of using it for evil.
For the most part, I enjoyed this book. In a way, it is a book comprised of multiple books as there is so much going on, some of it self-contained in separate sections of the book. I found myself enjoying certain subplots more than the overarching story. And it does pain me to say that as someone who is such an avid King fan, I’ve also loved most of the standalone Straub books I’ve read so far. However, this book felt like a bit of a slog at times. Maybe it’s a book I’ll come back to in the future and find myself appreciating more. But in the meantime, it’s on to the Black House.
My Goodreads rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars)
