The Talisman

Lily Sawyer is Jack’s mother. Her primary function in the story is to serve as the impetus for Jack’s journey to find the Talisman. When the story begins, Lily has uprooted Jack from Los Angeles and taken him to a hotel in Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire. Lily is dying of a mysterious, unnamed illness. Although she only ever had one prestigious role—for which she was nominated for an Academy Award—Lily is an actress who appeared in many movies. She was known as the “Queen of the Bs” and “Darling of the Drive-ins” (17). She was nominated for her work in the movie Blaze. She typically appeared in films like Motorcycle Maniacs, so her nomination for the serious film Blaze is her source of professional pride. To celebrate, her husband Phil took her to the Alhambra Inn in New Hampshire, which is where she spends most of The Talisman convalescing. She owns half of the company with Morgan Sloat, who is determined to put her in a hospital and eagerly waits for her death.

Jack describes mother her mother as “tough,” and as having “little use for tears” (47). This is evident when she agrees to let Jack leave to try to save her, even though she does not know exactly what he will do, or where he is going. When he heals her with the Talisman, she is restored to her former self, “eternally a blonde with a quick switchblade of a smile” (760). In the Territories, Lily’s Twinner is the Queen: Laura DeLoessian. Queen Laura is beloved by her people and is also dying of a mysterious illness.

Morgan Sloat is Jack’s uncle. Early on, Jack describes Morgan as “sort of a pest” (15), and Lily calls him a bully. Lily also says Morgan is “smart as a wolverine, sneaky as a courthouse lawyer” (190). He is a ruthless businessman, “another kind of being altogether. Uncle Morgan lived for business, for deal-making and hustling” (29). Morgan is directly responsible for the deaths of Phil Sawyer—Jack’s father and Morgan’s former business partner—and Tom Woodbine, the firm’s attorney. Above all, Morgan craves power and wealth. Lily stands in the way of his ambitions; she owns half of his company, and he cannot run it completely on his own terms if she is involved. He will benefit from her death, which becomes clearer as the novel progresses through both realms. Jack also realizes that Morgan tried to kill him as a child but was interrupted while preparing to smother him with a pillow.

When he is a little older, Jack overhears his father and Morgan talking about the Territories. When Morgan realizes Jack might have been listening, Jack thinks he looks, “Like a human earthquake, like a man crumbling apart over the fault-line behind his eyes, like something all wound up and waiting to explode” (195). Morgan’s greatest wish is to dominate the Territories, his own realm, and all other worlds that he can conquer. To this end, he begins transporting technology to the Territories, training and arming Wolfs to do his bidding, and builds the train tracks with slave labor. He is indifferent to the consequence of his actions, as long as his power grows. In the Territories, Morgan Sloat’s Twinner is known as Morgan of Orris, and shares all the same traits as his Twinner. In the final battle, Sloat is killed by Jack after Jack uses the Talisman against him.

Richard Sloat is Morgan Sloat’s son and Jack’s best friend. He is like Jack, “single-natured” (610), without a Twinner. Richard’s primary function in the story is to serve as a skeptic. Richard has childhood experience with the phenomena of the Territories, but he attributes them to hallucinations and nightmares. He rejects fantasy in all its forms. Jack describes this rejection as Richard having “Had Enough, Forever” (487). Even though he suspects that his father is an evil man, he tells Jack that he never wanted to acknowledge it; admitting the truth about his father’s nature could mean that he could no longer love his father.

When Jack encounters Richard in the novel for the first time, Richard is a student at Thayer. Richard describes his studies and ambitions in practical terms: “The point is finding out how things work. The point is that things actually really do work in an orderly way, in spite of how it looks, and you can find out about it” (456). When Thayer is overrun by creatures from the Territories, Jack flips with Richard to escape. As Richard travels across the Blasted Lands with Jack, he tries to convince himself that he is dreaming, or suffering from a fever. Ultimately, he accepts that his version of reality is not accurate and helps Jack in his quest. Richard is a sympathetic, loyal character who loses his innocence during his travels with Jack. His insistence on pragmatism allows King and Straub to create arguments against fantasy, the value of fiction, and hasty acceptance of unproven conclusions.

Speedy Parker is an elderly African American man who serves as Jack’s mentor in the ways of the Territories. Jack meets Speedy at Arcadia Beach, where he is working as a handyman and janitor. When he meets Jack, Speedy immediately refers to him as “Travellin Jack” (10), as if he knows about Jack’s trip to New Hampshire, and the journey to come. He tells Jack that he has a “job that ain’t gonna let you go” (36) and tells him that what Jack calls the Daydreams are a real place. Speedy is also a jazz and blues musician. When he occasionally bursts into song, the lyrics have some import to Jack’s impending journey, although Jack only realizes this in hindsight.

Speedy gives Jack the magic juice that allows him to flip between worlds. He also gives him the guitar pick that identifies him to Captain Farren in the Territories. Speedy has appeared in Jack’s past. Jack remembers him as an old man whose shout interrupted two men (or creatures known as Strangers) who were trying to abduct Jack and put him into their car. Speedy’s primary function in the novel is to give Jack the rules of the Territories, teach him how to flip, and convince him that he can save his mother. He is a quotable fount of wisdom and folklore. He joins Jack and Richard at the end of the novel for the fight at the Black Hotel in Point Venuti. Speedy’s Twinner in the Territories is known as Parkus. Parkus describes himself as the “Judge General and Lord High Executioner all rolled into one” (740).

Sunlight Gardener is a sadistic, fundamentalist Christian who torments Jack and Wolf after their arrival at his facility: the Sunlight Gardener Scripture Home for Wayward Boys. Jack meets Sunlight’s Twinner Osmond in the Territories before he ever meets Sunlight. Osmond carries a whip and brutally strikes Jack shortly after meeting him. Parkus tells Jack that Osmond would have killed him if he hadn’t been distracted by the overturned carts. Osmond utters the phrase, “All boys are bad. It’s axiomatic” (114) several times during their interaction. This repeated phrase indicates a disturbed worldview combined with a distorted view of children. It also foreshadows the atrocities of the Sunlight Home, an institution ostensibly dedicated to the rehabilitation of wayward (bad) boys.

Sunlight’s name is a symbol of both illumination, growth, and nurturing. The light of the sun warms the earth, while the gardener tends and cultivates plants for their usefulness and beauty. Instead, Sunlight Gardener tortures the boys in his care, pits them against one another, and conspires with Morgan Sloat to gain more power for himself. Sunlight is a symbol of hypocrisy. He acts and preaches in the name of Christianity, while practicing almost none of what Christianity requires of its adherents. He is a terrifying figure in that he believes his evil actions are justified. Whatever satisfies his appetites is, by his definition, necessary and good. Sunlight is killed during the final showdown at the black hotel.