The 12-year-old protagonist of Stephen King’s novel The Talisman is Jack Sawyer.
Published in 1984, The Talisman was co-written by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Jack begins the story searching for a powerful object known as the Talisman, which he hopes can save his seriously ill mother. His journey crosses both the ordinary United States and a parallel world called the Territories.
Jack is able to “flip” between the two worlds, and the novel links people in one reality with counterparts in the other. This dual-world structure is one of the book’s defining features and distinguishes it from many of King’s more strictly realistic or supernatural horror novels.
Jack Sawyer later returns as an adult in Black House, the 2001 sequel by King and Straub. He is not the same character as Jake Chambers, the young gunslinger’s companion in The Dark Tower series, although both names are associated with major King fantasy adventures.