BLACK HOUSE

By: J.A. Hitchcock
Date: Monday, December 17, 2001

I really, really tried to like this book. I love Stephen King's writing; I love most of what Peter Straub writes. I'd read THE TALISMAN (the prequel to this book) years ago and loved it. So I was eagerly awaiting BLACK HOUSE. All I could think of was, "Finally - they wrote the darned sequel."

Then I got the hardcover. Yes, it's long, but that's never deterred me before. It was the writing. I could easily tell this time around when Straub was writing and when King was writing. In THE TALISMAN, the writing seemed to be more fluid so that you couldn't really tell who wrote what. But I have a feeling there was a tug-of-war writing this book. I only made it through the first chapter.

I put the book down for a week to see if I could get into the mood to read it again, then got a good deal on the unabridged audio version. Since I do a lot of traveling, it's much easier to listen to a new book than hauling around a heavy hardcover (especially with all the restrictions on carry-ons airlines call for now). So I began listening. Frank Muller, the reader, is very good. I enjoyed his voice and he made the very obvious Peter Straub parts of the book easier to take. To me, when reading the printed version, it sounded pretentious. Now it sounded, well, less pretentious, although I still didn't like it. I finally began to get into the story.

BLACK HOUSE takes place just over twenty years after THE TALISMAN. Little Jack Sawyer, the hero of THE TALISMAN, is all grown up at 35, a retired LA detective (he got the nickname "Hollywood" there), and rich as can be. It seems that after his ordeal in THE TALISMAN, Jack became a good luck charm of sorts. Everything he touched or did turned to gold. He won lotteries, races, bets, etc. It also didn't hurt that his famous parents left him a hefty estate. So, on his last case involving a serial killer, he encountered a kindly chief of police named Dale Gilbertson in a small town called French Landing in Wisconsin. He bought Dale's father's house (who had died previously) and settled in.

Then the impossible happened. A serial killer was preying on young children in French Landing. He soon gains the nickname of The Fisherman after Jack unknowingly puts the local reporter onto the story about a previous serial killer named Albert Fish (a real one, by the way), who killed in pretty much the same way - by cannibalizing and dismembering his victims - and had that nickname.


But this time, The Fisherman comes from a place Jack is very familiar with - The Territories, the other world he had to deal with the last time around. Jack is not ready to do battle again, but knows he must. This is where the black house of the title comes in and when Jack does do battle, he takes along some brave, but odd "warriors" Henry Lane, who has more personalities than Sybil, is blind and very cool; five bikers who look like Hell's Angels but are really intelligent, kind men who want justice; Dale Gilbertson, Henry's nephew; and a few more.

What drove me batty about this book in both versions was the way it seemed to be written more like a wannabe screenplay than a book. The perspective of certain scenes changed from one group of characters to another, replaying that same, exact scene as the characters each saw it. I wanted to pull my own head off every time this happened, and I have a feeling this was Straub's contribution. Aargh! There was one point in the book where one scene was re-described five times to reflect the different characters' views.

Other bothersome parts include moments when the narrator takes you, the reader, on a "flight" to various parts of the small town and surrounding area. You "fly" in and out of houses, into telephone wires to hear conversations, and are actually told about some things that will happen before they occur. Please don't tell me what happens! Talk about an anticlimax!

I have a feeling that if King had written this book on his own, it would have been a lot better. Maybe I'm wrong. If you're a King or Straub fan, buy the hardcover for your collection. If you're not a huge fan, either get a good deal on the audiocassette (like I did) or wait for the paperback...that is, unless you have insomnia and need to find a way to get back to sleeping well; if so, this is the book for you.

BLACK HOUSE

Grade: C+

Author(s): Stephen King and Peter Straub; Frank Muller (audio reader)

Publisher:  Random House

Price: $28.95 (Audio Cassettes: $54.96)