To me, it reads as if only written by Stephen King rather than Straub. It is a story as magical as the very talisman that Jack’s quest is based upon, and it is all good. The tears you cry for his loss, inevitable. When Jack is trapped in this world or that, the urgency one feels or the angst is real.

It is escapism at its finest and I was lost within its pages and bereft when I finished them. The animals, fauna, food, drink and the buildings, all crystal clear in the mind’s eye, and you feel free. The Territories feel tantalisingly tangible to the reader, you are walking their dirt roads and breathing their sweet air, laying in their lush grass, or smelling ‘a radish being pulled from the ground a mile away’. You feel this grow in him, and you feel proud of him as if he is yours. Although Jack is only just a teenager by the end of the book, the trials and tribulations he faces and overcomes bring forth in him a maturity and wisdom that belies his age. At times you cannot turn the pages fast enough, which, let’s face it, is everything you want from a book. You are rooting for the protagonist all the way, and can feel the clock ticking as Jack’s Mum and subsequently, the version of her in The Territories, the Queen, dwindle away to their respective illnesses.

His enemies and friends along the way are all believable and crafted deftly, as you would expect. The character building is astounding, with Jack evolving into someone you really feel you know and empathise with. It is the archetypal story of Good Versus Evil that spans two worlds.

Meanwhile Sloat’s ‘twinner’ in the other world also plans to seize the Territories in the event of Queen (Jack’s Mum’s ‘twinner’) dying. He wants to seize their business from Jack’s mother. Accompanied by friendly werewolf (called ‘Wolf’) and later by his childhood friend Richard, Jack must retrieve the Talisman before it falls into the hands of evil ‘Uncle’ Morgan Sloat, Richard’s father. Various people help or hinder Jack in his quest as the story goes back and forth between the two worlds and Jack escapes from one life-threatening situation after another.

12 year old Jack Sawyer sets out on an epic journey in a bid to save his dying mother, by finding a crystal called “the Talisman.” His journey takes him simultaneously through the American heartland and “the Territories,” a strange fantasy land which is set in a universe parallel to that of America that also has parallel versions of most people, aptly called ‘twinners’.

The Talisman by Stephen King