Black House (novel)

"For other uses of the term, please see Black House, a disambiguation page."infobox Book |
name = Black House
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Stephen King, Peter Straub
cover_artist = Mary Steinbacher
country = United States
language = English
genre = Horror novel
publisher = Random House
release_date = September 15, 2001
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 625
isbn = ISBN 0-375-50439-7
preceded_by = Dreamcatcher
followed_by = From a Buick 8

"Black House" is a novel by horror writers Stephen King and Peter Straub. Published in 2001, this is the sequel to "The Talisman". As of yet there is no official news on a third book, but it has been heavily hinted that one will be written.

Plot summary

Twenty years earlier, in ("The Talisman"), a boy named Jack Sawyer travelled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her "twinner" (a similar person in this other world) from premature and agonizing deaths.

Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to unlock those memories. However, a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish. The new killer is dubbed "The Fisherman." Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. The investigation, which takes place on several levels and in at least two parallel universes, reawakens Jack to his previous experiences.

This is one of King's many mainstream novels, which also include "Hearts in Atlantis" and "Insomnia", that tie in with the Dark Tower series.

Straub is from Wisconsin, which may be why the story is set there rather than King's frequently used backdrop of Maine. The town of "French Landing" is a fictionalized version of the town of Trempealeau, Wisconsin. There you will find "Chase Street" "Sumner Street", King Street (instead of "Queen Street") and the famous "Sand Bar". However, the reader will have to travel to La Crosse (called La Riviere in the book) to find the world's largest six pack, a site mentioned in the book.

A chapter of the book is written around Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven."

Terms

* Abbalah: The Crimson King.
* Coppiceman: A word which Jack uses to refer to policemen, most notably himself. The word was taken from Wolfs' erroneous pronunciation of policeman in the previous book, The Talisman.
* D'Yamba: A magic word Jack uses that invokes the power of good.
* Opopanax: Jack is almost haunted by the word opopanax at the beginning of the story. Its meaning is given as: "describing a word that cannot be found in the dictionary." It is also the name of the feather in "Wolves of the Calla" that is used to summon the Calla folken to a palaver - and also passed to anyone desiring to speak during the palaver.
* Twinner: In this novel we learn the word twinner is similar to the Territories' word for harp. In Jack's mind this conjures up the image of two strings "a finger touch away".