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Black House

Black House

FantasyHorror
Pages
658
Published
2001
Language
English

Synopsis

Jack Sawyer, a former cop, is drawn into a dangerous investigation involving a serial killer and a mysterious parallel world. He must confront a terrifying evil that threatens both his reality and the fate of the universe. This novel is a sequel to The Talisman and connects to Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

DarkTenseMysteriousAtmospheric
Chosen OnePortal FantasyQuestSacrificeMystery Box

Genres

Fantasy Horror Mystery Thriller Espionage Literary Fiction Police Procedural Short Stories

Authors

S
Stephen King

Stephen King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author whose work has defined popular horror fiction for more than half a century. Born in Portland, Maine, he grew up in poverty after his father abandoned the family, and credits his mother's resilience and a voracious reading habit as the foundations of his imagination. He began selling short stories to men's magazines while working as a high school English teacher, and published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974—his wife Tabitha retrieved...

P
Peter Straub

Peter Straub (1943-2022) was an American novelist and poet who wrote horror and supernatural fiction with a literary bent. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he studied at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University and broke through with Julia (1975) and Ghost Story (1979). His Blue Rose novels, Koko, Mystery and The Throat, follow a group of Vietnam veterans and a series of murders. He co-wrote The Talisman (1984) and its sequel Black House (2001) with Stephen King. He also edited the Libra...

Characters

Jack SawyerProtagonist
All characters in Black House

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Black House a sequel to The Talisman?

    Yes. Black House (2001), co-written by King and Peter Straub, follows Jack Sawyer twenty years after the events of The Talisman. As an adult, Jack has suppressed all memory of the Territories and works as a retired LAPD detective living in Wisconsin. A series of brutal child murders draws him back toward the world he had forgotten.

  • How does Black House connect to the Dark Tower series?

    More explicitly than The Talisman did. Black House directly introduces Roland of Gilead and his ka-tet, and the novel's central threat—a location called Black House—is connected to the Crimson King and the Dark Tower's mythology. It is one of the novels King recommends reading before the later Dark Tower volumes.

  • Who is the Fisherman?

    The Fisherman is the serial killer at the center of the mystery—an elderly man in Tamarack, Wisconsin, who is killing and partially consuming children. His identity is discoverable early in the novel, but his supernatural connection to Black House and the entity controlling him is the real horror.

  • What is Black House itself?

    Black House is a condemned, isolated structure on the outskirts of Tamarack that functions as a kind of portal or staging area between the physical world and the Dark Tower's multiverse. Its atmosphere is deeply wrong—animals avoid it, and most people cannot bring themselves to approach it.

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