Jack learns that he has the ability to ‘flip’ into an alternate Earth: The Territories, a medieval world where magic and myth co-exist, and his mother’s counterpart – Queen Laura DeLoessian – is seriously ill, and losing her status as ruler of the land. He is tasked with journeying across the entire country to the West Coast of California.for on the coast, he shall find the Talisman – a magical artifact of great power, an artifact capable of restoring his mother to health.īut the journey to the Talisman will be no conventional road trip. In a deserted amusement park he meets the local handyman, the elderly 'Speedy' Parker, who hints that a great journey awaits ‘Travelin’ Jack’, a journey that will be marked by no small amount of danger.Īccording to Speedy, Lily Cavanaugh is very sick– perhaps dying – and saving her life rests on Jack's shoulders. Troubled and unsure, Jack can only wander the grounds of the off-season resort and hope that his mother’s condition will improve. Lily passes her days in a haze generated by cigarettes and booze, defying the heavy-handed efforts of her husband’s former colleague and business partner, Morgan Sloat, to sign over her share of the business to him. Lily is unwell, still recovering from the death of her husband – Jack’s father, Phil Sawyer- in a hunting accident.
His mother, the retired B-Movie actress Lily Cavanaugh, has moved the two of them from their former home in Los Angeles into the nearby Alhambra Inn and Gardens.
It’s a better novel than most of those that King and Straub have written since the mid-80s….Īs the novel opens, it’s September 15, 1981, and twelve year-old Jack Sawyer is standing on the beach at the resort town of Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire, looking out onto the Atlantic Ocean. So, how does The Talisman hold up when re-read thirty years later ? But its length – 770 pp – made picking it up and re-reading it no small decision, one I didn’t make until now.
I remember reading this paperback in November / December 1985 and finding that The Talisman was a pretty good book. This Berkley paperback was released in November, 1985. The Talisman first was published in hardcover in 1984.
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