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Black House
by Authors:
STEPHEN KING, PETER STRAUB
Paperback
In the seemingly paradisal Wisconsin town of French Landing, small distortions disturb the beauty: a talking crow, an old man obeying strange internal marching orders, a house that is both there and not quite there. And roaming the town is a terrible fiend nicknamed the Fisherman, who is abducting and murdering small children and eating their flesh. The sheriff desperately wants the help of a retired Los Angeles cop, who once collared another serial killer in a neighboring town.
Of course, this is no ordinary policeman, but Jack Sawyer, hero of Stephen King and Peter Straub's 1984 fantasy The Talisman. At the end of that book, the 13-year-old Jack had completed a grueling journey through an alternate realm called the Territories, found a mysterious talisman, killed a terrible enemy, and saved the life of his mother and her counterpart in the Territories. Now in his 30s, Jack remembers nothing of the Talisman, but he also hasn't entirely forgotten:
When these faces rise or those voices mutter, he has until now told himself the old lie, that once there was a frightened boy who caught his mother's neurotic terror like a cold and made up a story, a grand fantasy with good old Mom-saving Jack Sawyer at its center. None of it was real, and it was forgotten by the time he was sixteen. By then he was calm. Just as he's calm now, running across his north field like a lunatic, leaving that dark track and those clouds of startled moths behind him, but doing it calmly.
Jack is abruptly pulled into the case--and back into the Territories--by the Fisherman himself, who sends Jack a child's shoe, foot still attached. As Jack flips back and forth between French Landing and the Territories, aided by his 20-years-forgotten friend Speedy Parker and a host of other oddballs (including a blind disk jockey, the beautiful mother of one of the missing children, and a motorcycle gang calling itself the "Hegelian Scum"), he tracks both the Fisherman and a much bigger fish: the abbalah, the Crimson King who seeks to destroy the axle of worlds.
While The Talisman was a straightforward myth in 1980s packaging, Black House is richer and more complex, a fantasy wrapped in a horror story inside a mystery, sporting a clever tangle of references to Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, jazz, baseball, and King's own Dark Tower saga. Talisman fans will find the sure-footed Jack has worn well--as has the King/Straub writing style, which is much improved with the passage of two decades.
Average Customer Rating:
Black House Ultimately Disappoints
If you read Amazon reviews of Stephen King books, you've probably come across a few of mine here. I usually give King five stars because he is simply the most compelling writer I know. His books are sometimes uneven, but he is such a master at stringing words together that I am entertained by his verbiage, if not the story and/or characters. That remains the case with Black House, though I finished the book much less entertained than I usually am by a King tale. I haven't mentioned Peter Straub yet because, in my view, Black House is very much reflective of King's sensibilities. It harkens back to characters from other SK books, such as Ted Brautigan from "Hearts in Atlantis." It ties its story to mythology previously rendered in The Dark Tower series. While I'm sure Straub did his fair share of the writing, this is still very much a Stephen King opus. As you know, Black House is a sequel to King and Straub's previously collaboration, "The Talisman." Therein lies the source of my disappointment. Almost all of "The Talisman" took place in King and Straub's parallel universe, known as "The Territories." It's a fascinating place -- a bent and skewed version of our own world. But almost none of "Black House" takes place in The Territories. It's pretty much a supernatural detective tale, with "Talisman" boy-hero Jack Sawyer now grown-up and a crackerjack homicide cop. It was fine, as far as it went -- it just didn't go far enough for me. It took me about four times as long to read "Black House" as it usually does to devour a King novel, chiefly because I simply wasn't compelled enough to pick it up as often. That's unusual for me. Summing up, "Black House" is worth the read, but it doesn't represent Stephen King or Peter Straub at their best.
Good, but not really "a sequel" to The Talisman
I'm a Stephen King fan and I liked "The Talisman" a lot. I liked "Black House" and I think most Stephen King fans will too.
One caution up front. As Amazon's description of the book makes clear, the villain in this book is a serial child killer who eats his victims. There may be more than a few people who find this idea so disturbing that even my mention of the theme bothers them. It probably will not help these people if I say "it's just a STORY, it's almost comic-book stuff, it's not THAT graphic, they don't MEAN it."
I read fantasy and horror to escape from reality, so I am glad to report that "Black House" has no references in it to airliners, explosions, or tall office buildings. It served me well as a welcome distraction during the last few terrible weeks.
"Black House" is not really a sequel to "The Talisman." It's an independent book with some loose connections to "The Talisman." (And almost as many to the Dark Tower series).
True, the central character of "Black House," Jack Sawyer, is the central character of "The Talisman,"--but so much time has passed that he is almost a different person. A few other characters from "The Talisman" make what might be called cameo appearances.
To me, this book felt like a "typical Stephen King novel." It did not really evoke the feelings and mood of "The Talisman." (I don't mean to slight Straub here; but I will say that the collaboration is seamless--and the result reads like King).
Unlike "The Talisman," most of events in "Black House" take place in this world. It is "about" a cop chasing down a serial child killer in one of Stephen King's black, ironic, inverted "Our Towns." More like the world of "It" than the world of "The Talisman."
(I've enjoyed trying to figure out where "French Landing" is. My guess: Prairie du Chien).
The authors imply that there may be a trilogy in the offing, with the third book taking place mostly in the Territories... but part of the charm of "The Talisman" was Jack Sawyer's strange balancing act between the two worlds.
This book has what I'll call the "usual beloved faults" of King's writing. Unlike a J. R. R. Tolkien or a Robert Heinlein, the writers never convince me that the story is taking place in a real, consistent world with well-defined rules. They're making it up as they go along, and they (and you) know it. Some of the "cross-references" to other characters and events feel like the sorts of things you get in a detective series. You know, "Lance Sterling called Edna Redstone, the librarian who had helped him solve in 'The Mystery of the Haunted Windmill." Then he drew out the pocketknife that had served him so well in 'The Secret of the Red Lighthouse.'"
What this means to readers new to King is, no, you don't need to read "The Talisman" or the Dark Tower novels first. You'll probably get the feeling that some mysterious things would make more sense if you'd read them, but it's not really true. There's no grand unified story to figure out, and it's OK to come in the middle.
For those to whom the title "Black House" instantly calls to mind Dickens' "Bleak House," the authors are aware of the similarity and work it into the story. (Whether there's supposed to be an intentional connection, I can't say--I've often suspected that if editors notice things in King's writing that are uncomfortably derivative of other books, he disarms cricitism by deliberately acknowledging them ).
An extreme let down
From an avid Stephen King fan, I have to say that this novel was extremely disappointing. And I think this was due, largely in part, to the Peter Straub influence.
To start with, the third person narative style, whereby the author is seemingly taking you by the hand and leading you through the book like some lost child is EXTREMELY tedious. Every time I felt the book lean in that direction, I could almost feel myself cringe. "Now lets go see whats happening here boys and girls." I am sorry, but if the Mr. Rogers analogy doesn't indicate what age group that style of writing is geared for, I am not certain what will.
Secondly, there was no real apprehension in this book. I never felt the type of genuine concern that is supposed to be instilled onto the reader when characters in the novel are in peril. The book seemed to just slowly trudge from one page to the next as our protaganist moved forward in his quest.
Finally, this book was clearly nothing more than sheer marketting. A way for King to generate additional revenue by bringing in the tie in to his Dark Tower series. (Which I am also reading by the way)
The ironic thing is that The Talisman (which Black House is the sequel to) was my all time favorite King novel. It was a taut, suspenseful and thoroughly enjoyable novel. Fortunately, Black House's drivel did not tarnish my minds image of it since other than the resurgance of the main character (who was a young boy in the first novel) is the only real linking point. That, and the concept of the alternate universe, "The Territories" which is now the underlying premise in the Dark Tower series.
For die hard King fans, I think you may want to leave this one on the shelf. I am not sure who to cast the blame on, King or Straub, but it is more than evident that the writing style is clearly NOT King.
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DVD's
Black House Ultimately Disappoints 
Good, but not really "a sequel" to The Talisman 
An extreme let down 
