The institute : a novel / Stephen King.

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A NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2019 SELECTION

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, the most riveting and unforgettable story of kids confronting evil since It.

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis's parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents--telekinesis and telepathy--who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, "like the roach motel," Kalisha says. "You check in, but you don't check out."

In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don't, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It , The Institute is Stephen King's gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don't always win.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

The Institute 1 Half an hour after Tim Jamieson's Delta flight was scheduled to leave Tampa for the bright lights and tall buildings of New York, it was still parked at the gate. When a Delta agent and a blond woman with a security badge hanging around her neck entered the cabin, there were unhappy, premonitory murmurings from the packed residents of economy class. "May I have your attention, please!" the Delta guy called. "How long's the delay gonna be?" someone asked. "Don't sugarcoat it." "The delay should be short, and the captain wants to assure you all that your flight will arrive approximately on time. We have a federal officer who needs to board, however, so we'll need someone to give up his or her seat." A collective groan went up, and Tim saw several people unlimber their cell phones in case of trouble. There had been trouble in these situations before. "Delta Air Lines is authorized to offer a free ticket to New York on the next outbound flight, which will be tomorrow morning at 6:45 AM--" Another groan went up. Someone said, "Just shoot me." The functionary continued, undeterred. "You'll be given a hotel voucher for tonight, plus four hundred dollars. It's a good deal, folks. Who wants it?" He had no takers. The security blond said nothing, only surveyed the crowded economy-class cabin with all-seeing but somehow lifeless eyes. "Eight hundred," the Delta guy said. "Plus the hotel voucher and the complimentary ticket." "Guy sounds like a quiz show host," grunted a man in the row ahead of Tim's. There were still no takers. "Fourteen hundred?" And still none. Tim found this interesting but not entirely surprising. It wasn't just because a six forty-five flight meant getting up before God, either. Most of his fellow economy-class passengers were family groups headed home after visiting various Florida attractions, couples sporting beachy-keen sunburns, and beefy, red-faced, pissed-off-looking guys who probably had business in the Big Apple worth considerably more than fourteen hundred bucks. Someone far in the back called, "Throw in a Mustang convertible and a trip to Aruba for two, and you can have both our seats!" This sally provoked laughter. It didn't sound terribly friendly. The gate agent looked at the blond with the badge, but if he hoped for help there, he got none. She just continued her survey, nothing moving but her eyes. He sighed and said, "Sixteen hundred." Tim Jamieson suddenly decided he wanted to get the fuck off this plane and hitchhike north. Although such an idea had never so much as crossed his mind before this moment, he found he could imagine himself doing it, and with absolute clarity. There he was, standing on Highway 301 somewhere in the middle of Hernando County with his thumb out. It was hot, the lovebugs were swarming, there was a billboard advertising some slip-and-fall attorney, "Take It on the Run" was blaring from a boombox sitting on the concrete-block step of a nearby trailer where a shirtless man was washing his car, and eventually some Farmer John would come along and give him a ride in a pickup truck with stake sides, melons in the back, and a magnetic Jesus on the dashboard. The best part wouldn't even be the cash money in his pocket. The best part would be standing out there by himself, miles from this sardine can with its warring smells of perfume, sweat, and hair spray. The second-best part, however, would be squeezing the government tit for a few dollars more. He stood up to his perfectly normal height (five-ten and a fraction), pushed his glasses up on his nose, and raised his hand. "Make it two thousand, sir, plus a cash refund of my ticket, and the seat is yours." Excerpted from The Institute: A Novel by Stephen King All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Narrator Santino Fontana brings King's (The Outsider) latest parapsychological thriller to life with dramatic skill that creates mood and tone. Late one night, a Minneapolis home is invaded. The parents are ruthlessly murdered; Luke, their precociously gifted tween son, is then kidnapped by a secretive government agency and taken to the Institute. There he will be the subject of torturous experiments designed to strengthen his mild telekinetic ability in order to weaponize him. The children and teens he befriends there and how they ultimately triumph make for a stay-up-all-night-to-finish read and prove yet again King's ability to create richly textured characters and a story featuring themes of conspiracy theory, child abuse, the occult, and Deep State malevolence. VERDICT Recommended for confirmed King fans and an excellent entry point to the author.--David Faucheux, Lafayette, LA

Publishers Weekly Review

King wows with the most gut-wrenching tale of kids triumphing over evil since It. In a quiet Minnesota neighborhood, intruders kidnap 12-year-old prodigy Luke Ellis and murder his parents. When Luke wakes up, he finds himself in a room identical to his own bedroom, except that he is now a resident of the Institute--a facility that tests telekinetic and telepathic abilities of children. Luke finds comfort in the company of the children in the Front Half: Kalisha, Nick, George, and Avery. Others have graduated to the Back Half, where "kids check in, but they don't check out." The Front Half are promised that they'll be returned to their parents after testing and a visit to Back Half, but Luke becomes suspicious and desperate to get out and get help for the others. However, no child has ever escaped the Institute. Tapping into the minds of the young characters, King creates a sense of menace and intimacy that will have readers spellbound. The mystery of the Institute's purpose is drawn out naturally until it becomes far scarier than the physical abuse visited upon the children. Not a word is wasted in this meticulously crafted novel, which once again proves why King is the king of horror. Agent: Chuck Verrill, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Sept.)

Booklist Review

Over a prolific 40-year writing career most authors only dream about, King has turned almost every one of his novels into a bestseller on the strength of his ability to create sympathetic protagonists facing life-threatening and often otherworldly challenges. Following the tender and mysterious fable, Elevation (2018), King's latest supernatural yarn stays true to his signature focus by featuring a 12-year-old genius named Luke Ellis who's kidnapped and transported to a secret facility known simply as the Institute. As the shock of capture wears off, Luke discovers his fellow inmates are all other adolescents like himself with latent psychic powers powers that are exploited and enhanced by a team of abusive researchers. When Luke befriends a disenchanted housekeeper, he quickly seizes the opportunity to escape and reveal the Institute's undertakings to the outside world. King devotees will, of course, devour this latest suspenseful page-turner, but any reader looking for a smart thriller about an unusual black ops organization will find this compelling and rewarding. With his usual blend of plot twists and vividly drawn characters, King remains at the top of his game. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Abducted psychic teens, a black ops mission, and narrative magnetism ensure the usual King fever. Be prepared.--Carl Hays Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

The master of modern horror returns with a loose-knit parapsychological thriller that touches on territory previously explored in Firestarter and Carrie.Tim Jamieson is a man emphatically not in a hurry. As King's (The Outsider, 2018, etc.) latest opens, he's bargaining with a flight attendant to sell his seat on an overbooked run from Tampa to New York. His pockets full, he sticks out his thumb and winds up in the backwater South Carolina town of DuPray (should we hear echoes of "pray"? Or "depraved"?). Turns out he's a decorated cop, good at his job and at reading others ("You ought to go see Doc Roper," he tells a local. "There are pills that will brighten your attitude"). Shift the scene to Minneapolis, where young Luke Ellis, precociously brilliant, has been kidnapped by a crack extraction team, his parents brutally murdered so that it looks as if he did it. Luke is spirited off to Mainethis is King, so it's got to be Maineand a secret shadow-government lab where similarly conscripted paranormally blessed kids, psychokinetic and telepathic, are made to endure the Skinnerian pain-and-reward methods of the evil Mrs. Sigsby. How to bring the stories of Tim and Luke together? King has never minded detours into the unlikely, but for this one, disbelief must be extra-willingly suspended. In the end, their forces joined, the two and their redneck allies battle the sophisticated secret agents of The Institute in a bloodbath of flying bullets and beams of mental energy ("You're in the south now, Annie had told these gunned-up interlopers. She had an idea they were about to find out just how true that was"). It's not King at his best, but he plays on current themes of conspiracy theory, child abuse, the occult, and Deep State malevolence while getting in digs at the current occupant of the White House, to say nothing of shadowy evil masterminds with lisps.King fans won't be disappointed, though most will likely prefer the scarier likes of The Shining and It. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.