# The Talisman (King and Straub novel)

The Talisman is a 1984 fantasy novel by American writers Stephen King and Peter Straub. The plot is not related to that of Walter Scott's 1825 novel of the same name, although there is one oblique reference to "a Sir Walter Scott novel." The Talisman was nominated for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards in 1985. King and Straub followed up with a sequel, Black House (2001), that picks up with a now-adult 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 novel was confirmed to be in the works in January 2025.

## Plot

Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, and his actress mother Lily Cavanaugh have moved from California to Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire, to escape the machinations of his dead father's old business partner, Morgan Sloat. Lily is dying of lung cancer, but refuses to accept treatment, or to communicate with Morgan, whom she has never trusted.
Left to his own devices, Jack meets a mysterious maintenance man named Speedy Parker, who tells him about a place called the Territories, and a magical item called the Talisman that can save his mother. This item is hidden in a counterpart of the Alhambra Hotel in which Jack and his mother are staying, situated in a remote part of the Territories.
We learn that that the world Speedy calls " the Territories" exists in parallel to our own. Some individuals in the Territories have "twinners", or counterparts, in our world. Twinners' births, deaths, and other major life events usually also exist in parallel. Twinners can "flip" or migrate to the other world, but do so by occupying the body of their counterpart.
In rare instances (such as Jack's), a person may die in one world but not the other, making the survivor "single-natured", with the ability to switch back and forth freely between the two worlds. Jack is taught how to flip by Speedy Parker, who he learns is the twinner of a gunslinger named Parkus in the Territories. The beloved Queen Laura of the Territories is the twinner of Jack's mother (who is known as the "Queen of the B Movies"), and, like Jack's mother, Queen Laura is dying. Speedy tells Jack that the Talisman is capable of healing both Lily and her Twinner.
Jack sets off to seek the mystical Talisman in the parallel world, with help and encouragement from Speedy Parker. Arriving in the Territories, he encounters the sadistic Osmond, a henchman of Morgan of Orris, who is an enemy of Queen Laura. Morgan of Orris is the Territories counterpart of Morgan Sloat, the business partner who may have caused the death of Jack's father. Both versions of Morgan are hunting for Jack, and are aware of his nature.
Jack narrowly escapes being caught by Morgan of Orris and takes refuge in woods by the side of the road. But the forest is dangerous: sentient trees attack Jack, forcing him to flip back into this world. Hoping travel will be safer in his world, Jack continues his journey through the U.S. and gets a job working as a barback in Oatley, New York. The owner, Smokey Updike, is ruthless and abusive towards Jack and keeps him a virtual prisoner.
Jack escapes Oatley, but is chased by a goat-like creature named Elroy that has been stalking him throughout his stay. He evades Elroy long enough to return to the Territories, where Jack remembers another associate of his father named Jerry Bledsoe, who died in a freak explosion. Jack understands that flipping between the two worlds may have serious, even fatal consequences. When Jack returns to his world after running into Elroy and Morgan again, he becomes convinced that he has inadvertently caused a similar incident, and loses courage.
In Ohio, Jack meets a blind singer, who may or may not be Speedy in disguise, who motivates Jack to continue his journey. Once back on the road, Jack runs into Morgan at a rest stop, flips into the Territories, and meets a werewolf creature, named Wolf. Wolf is a friendly young male, whose family are the dedicated herders and guardians of the Queen's livestock, animals which resemble cow/sheep hybrids. Wolf was acquainted with Jack's father and Morgan/Orris, was aware of their good and evil natures, and identifies Jack because his scent is like his father's. The two become friends, but Morgan arrives through a portal and attacks them with a device that emits lightning bolts. The cattle panic and Wolf nearly drowns while trying to get them out of the river. Jack saves him and escapes by flipping back into his world, taking Wolf with him. The two travel towards Indiana, though Wolf struggles to adjust to Jack's world.
Jack and Wolf are arrested for vagrancy by a police officer and are taken to the Sunlight Home, a school for delinquent boys. The school's owner, evangelist Robert Gardner, is the twinner of Morgan's henchman Osmond, who is on the hunt for Jack. The boys are bullied by the school prefects, Sonny Singer and Heck Bast. The Sunlight House has a brutal regime, kept hidden from the outside world: inmates are often subjected to brutal punishments. After a number of incidents, Jack and Wolf are able to escape into the Territories. They learn that the Territories counterpart of the school is itself a prison camp, worse even than the Sunlight Home, and flip back almost immediately.
The prefects fight Jack and Wolf in the bathroom, and Gardner, who is suspicious of Jack's identity, drugs Wolf and tortures Jack in an attempt to make him reveal himself. Wolf, who has been placed in a solitary confinement box, transforms into a werewolf, and wreaks havoc on the school, massacring numerous students and breaking into Gardner's office. Wolf kills the prefects in Gardner's office, but is shot by Sonny. Jack comforts the dying Wolf before moving on to enlist the help of Morgan Sloat's son Richard, who is at boarding school in Illinois. Jack attempts to tell Richard about his adventures and Morgan's plan, but Richard refuses to believe him. But Jack's presence has unleashed a series of uncanny events. The school transforms into a grotesque Territories version of itself; the students turn into mutants and attempt to goad Richard into giving up Jack. Finally, the two boys escape and flip into the Territories.
In the Territories, the duo meet a man named Anders who is sending a shipment of weapons to Morgan's soldiers for a final stand against Jack. Richard, still refusing to accept Jack's tale or the reality of his surroundings, is convinced that he is hallucinating. Jack decides to take the shipment himself and plan an ambush. The boys travel via a battery-operated train through the Blasted Lands, a hellish landscape full of fireballs, mutated creatures, and smugglers. Jack and Richard - who is becoming increasingly ill from the radiation - bombard the army base, destroying most of Morgan's armada and killing both Elroy and Osmond's son. Jack flips into California, where Richard finally admits to the Territories' existence.
They arrive at Point Venuti, their final destination, and sneak into the Agincourt Hotel undetected by the remaining mutants. They meet Speedy Parker, who is weak and dying. Inside the Black Castle, Jack battles stone suits of armor defending the Talisman and takes it, triggering an earthquake and disbanding the rest of the mutants who allied with Morgan Sloat. Jack realizes there are multiple worlds beside the two he is familiar with, and the Talisman is the axis of all of them. He heals Richard with the Talisman, kills Gardner on the castle steps and faces off with Morgan on the beach. Eventually he manages to kill Sloat, heals Speedy and returns to New Hampshire in a Cadillac Eldorado. Jack reunites with Lily and uses the Talisman a final time to save his mother and the Queen.

## Publication history

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, and their children. The two writers became friends, both being fans of each other's work. King and his family left London three months later to return to the United States. Straub and King had talked multiple times before about collaborating to write a book, but nothing ever surfaced until years after King returned stateside, when the Straubs also moved to the United States. According to King, they began collaborating. Their literary friendship continued after The Talisman was published; in 1999 they began working on the sequel, Black House (2001), which deals with Sawyer as an adult. The book's sequel Black House presents a retcon that the Territories are a parallel to All-World. This is made most clear by King's introduction to The Little Sisters of Eluria where he states the pavilion where Jack Sawyer meets Sophie is the same one in The Little Sisters.

## Locations
### The Territories

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 eastern region, corresponding to the Eastern Seaboard, is the most densely populated and is governed under a feudal system headed by the Queen. The central regions, roughly corresponding to the American plains, are a grain growing area known as "the Outposts." Beyond them, the western region of the Territories is a destroyed area known as "the Blasted Lands" (analogous to the American Southwest – primarily New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was tested). It apparently was wrecked by radioactivity, and has dangerous mutants and occasional fireballs.

### Alhambra Hotel

Where Jack begins his quest and meets Speedy Parker. It is a decaying building on the New Hampshire coast, at the end of the novel deserted except for Jack's mother. Its parallel in the Territories is the summer palace of the dying queen. Another location near the hotel is Arcadia Funworld, a decrepit theme park where Speedy works. The Alhambra was also a notable location in King's novel The Tommyknockers.

### Oatley Tap

A bar in the fictional western New York town of the same name.

### Sunlight Gardener's School

When Jack and Wolf are accused of mischievous "hitchhiking" and "trouble-making" by a highway police officer, they are sent by the court to a camp/school for troubled youths run by evangelist Robert "Sunlight" Gardner/Osmond. It is located in eastern Indiana and parallels a terrible open pit mine in the Territories where slaves are used to gather radioactive ore for Morgan. Jack and Wolf are held as wards of the state in the Sunlight Home for one month.

### Thayer School

A boarding school for wealthy boys in Springfield, Illinois. Jack meets up with his friend Richard here.

### Agincourt Hotel

In the ruined town of Point Venuti on the northern California coast. It is a mysterious abandoned black structure similar to the Alhambra. It holds the Talisman and has many different incarnations depending on the alternate universe. In the Territories, it appears as a black castle. As Jack approaches the Talisman, the changing shapes of the building reveal to the reader that there are many other worlds beyond just the Territories and America.

## Reception

Anticipation for the book was strong, with the publisher financing a USD$550,000 promotional budget”. The hardback edition spent 12 weeks at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List, with a total of 23 weeks on the list.
Critical reception, however, was mixed. Kirkus Reviews called it: "pretentious, verbose, psycho-gothic/philosophical fantasy," while acknowledging the "gripping sequences along the way". The New York Times says: ''The Talisman' has inherited the worst traits of both its parents. From Mr. King it has acquired, among other things, his compulsion to list brand-name products, his affinity for pop-cult teen-age junk and his penchant for the endless repetition of cryptic italicized phrases. From Mr. Straub the book has come by a literary self-consciousness, an almost ink-stained scholarliness, and an over-fascination with complicated magic effects."

## Adaptations

The Talisman has been adapted into a 2008 short film and a graphic novel much like The Stand and The Dark Tower. The first issue was published in October 2009. Del Rey planned to run "at least 24 issues"; however, only six issues were published. A feature-length film version has been in planning for decades, and was in development by Amblin Partners and The Kennedy/Marshall Company with a script by Chris Sparling. In 2021, it was revealed that Amblin would be developing the novel as a Netflix television series, with the Duffer Brothers helping with development.