This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Read the full disclaimer here.
Black House requires some context. If you haven’t read The Talisman — the 1984 King/Straub collaboration about a twelve-year-old boy named Jack Sawyer who travels through a parallel world called the Territories to save his dying mother — this review is going to push you to do that first. Black House is a sequel to The Talisman set twenty years later and assumes you know who Jack Sawyer is and where he’s been.
With that said: if you’ve read The Talisman and loved it, Black House is the book you’ve been waiting for.
What’s It About?
Jack Sawyer is now an adult — a retired LAPD detective who has suppressed all memory of his childhood journey through the Territories and doesn’t know why he instinctively moved to the small Wisconsin town of French Landing. A serial killer called the Fisherman is murdering children in the area. Jack is pulled back into investigation, back into awareness of who he really is, and back toward the Territories — which are, it turns out, directly connected to the world of the Dark Tower.
Black House is a straightforward thriller plot wrapped around a Dark Tower mythology delivery system, and the combination works better than it sounds.
What Works
The atmosphere is the book’s great strength. The small-town Wisconsin setting is rendered with real vividness — French Landing feels lived-in, its residents specific and memorable. King and Straub clearly enjoy the setting and the affection shows.
The Territories sequences are the reward for patient readers. When Jack finally crosses back, the expansion of the mythological framework established in The Talisman is satisfying in ways that will particularly delight Dark Tower readers — the connections are explicit and handled with care.
The Fisherman himself is a compelling villain. He’s genuinely frightening in the early chapters, when he remains mysterious, and the explanation for his behaviour is more interesting than a standard serial killer motivation.
What Doesn’t Quite Work
The novel is narrated in an unusual second-person plural — “we” — which takes adjustment. It’s a deliberate stylistic choice meant to evoke a storyteller addressing an audience, and it works better than it has any right to, but it’s distracting for the first fifty pages.
The middle section sags slightly. There’s a considerable amount of French Landing community-building that enriches the setting but slows the plot’s momentum.
Do You Need to Read The Talisman First?
Yes. Black House is not a good entry point to either author’s work. It assumes familiarity with Jack Sawyer, with the Territories, and — to get the most from the Dark Tower connections — with at least the first few Dark Tower novels.
Read The Talisman first. It’s excellent. Then come here.
Rating: 3.5/5 (for readers who know The Talisman; non-applicable without that context)
Rated 4.0 Stars on Amazon. Buy Black House here.
You Might Also Like
- IT by Stephen King Review
- Stephen King Books in Order
- Is The Dark Tower Worth Reading?
- Floating Dragon by Peter Straub Review
Check out Sunset In the East — a mind-bending short story collection from Ben Luxon.
