It was 17 years ago that the first collaboration by Stephen King and Peter Straub, The Talisman, was a mega-success. It was the #1 hardcover fiction seller for 1984, with more than 880,000 copies sold in the last two months of that year. It landed the #1 slot in its first week on sale and held that place for 11 weeks; its total hardcover bestseller tenure was 26 weeks. Now, its sequel, Black House , goes to the top of the fiction list after just a partial week on bookstore shelves (its first week's partial sales at the three big chains totaled almost 13,000). Black House's one-day laydown by Random House came just four days after the terrorist attacks, when getting attention for any new book was impossible. First printing was 1.4 million. A joint appearance by the authors on Today was postponed (a new date has not been set). Early print reviews have been stellar (a boxed, starred PW notice called this "a brilliant and challenging dark fantasy that fans of both authors are going to love"). Advertising, publicity appearances and events are scheduled, beginning early next month and going through mid-November.
With reporting by Dick Donahue.
