Stephen King’s “The Institute” is one of his best novels. There are no ghosts, ghouls, demonic clowns. No crazed killers, just ordinary human beings, twisted into monstrous form by the desire to do “{best” in the National Interest.
“The Institute” opens with Tim Jamieson, an ex-cop wandering north to South Carolina from a professional mishap in Florida that claimed his badge.
He lands in DuPray, a small railway depot town in no wehere with shuttered storefronts and a rundown motel. He takes a gig as a “night knocker” a sort of night watchman, unofficial cop whose job it is to patrol the deserted streets and check out the shuttered store fronts.
That’s the last we’ll hear from him for quite a while, but these first 40 pages of “The Institute” it’s a peaceful existence, where for now nothing ever happens.
“The Institute” then turns to Luke Ellis, a Minneapolis
12-year-old with an extraordinary intelligence. Extraordinary in an average
sort of way, that is, except for a minor telekinetic ability. But then the
novel takes a dark twist and never turns back.
Just as Luke’s parents are getting used to the idea of moving to Boston so that he can take classes at both M.I.T. and Emerson College, a strike team of mysterious operatives breaks into the Ellis home, drugging and abducting Luke and executing his parents.
Luke wakes up in a room decorated like his bedroom back home, but with a door that opens onto a corridor decorated with posters of romping children emblazoned with mottos like “JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE” and “I CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY!” This is the Institute, and a paradise it is not.
He meets a girl named Kalisha who fills him in and introduces him to the other inmates, all children. The adults who run the Institute subject the children — all of whom have telekinetic abilities — to unexplained experiments ranging from the ordinary to the down right uncomfortable, to the terrifying: injections; flickering lights; blood samples; MRIs; and, worst of all, dunkings to the verge of drowning in a tank of water. If the kids comply, they get tokens good for treats from vending machines that offer snacks, booze and even cigarettes. If they resist, they’re beaten or tased.
After a few weeks, most of them will be transferred to the Back Half, a part of the Institute shrouded in rumor. No kid ever comes back from the Back Half. The children in the Institute aren’t dumb, but they’re still children. They want to believe they’ll go home again, even though they’re pretty sure they won’t.
So Luke along with the other children learns to comply. Pain and torture are great teachers. He makes friends with a kid called Avery {The Avster), and when Luke learns too much he is sent to the Back Institute.
There with the help of a sympathetic staff member he manages an escape. Cue: link to Dupray where he is eventually rescued by Tim Jamieson.
But he is not free. Tracked down by the evil Mrs. Sigsby and a team of assassins the novel reaches a fever pitch of action, that flicks back and forward from the Institute to Dupray. A pitched battle occurs in the town which results in only one law enforcement officer surviving – Tim and the leader of the Institute “Swat” team: Mrs Sigbsy captured.
The novel flicks north to The Institute where the kids have learned to combine their powers and are bringing the Institute to ruin. Flying to the rescue is Tim and Luke, who arrive in time for the final climatic scenes. But it isn’t all smooth sailing. The kids dace annhikation. Some will not survive the encounter.
This is a seriously good page turner. Its quite believable conclusion keeps the reader wanting to turn that one more page. A really enjoyable read
