The Institute

In the beginning of The Institute, by Stephen King, Luke Ellis is freakishly smart, a tween ready to dual-enroll at MIT and Emerson, who occasionally moves things when he’s highly emotional. Luke’s plan to study two wildly different subjects at two different top-tier school sets readers up from the beginning to understand both that Luke is talented and that he has abilities in different areas. It’s his occasionally ability to rattle things with his mind, though, that leads him being abducted from his home in the middle of the night, and taken to an eerie replica of his room in the unexplained Institute.

At The Institute, Luke finds other children with telekinetic or telepathic powers, who’ve also been taken from their homes and subjected to strange experiments. There’s a similar feel as 11’s backstory in Stranger Things, only Luke’s mental powers are much lower. Luke mostly rattles plates when he gets overexcited, if he had the explosive TK abilities, he’d be able to escape the terrifying Front Half. This builds the frustration — in addition to the unexplained experiments and the adults who slap him for asking why, Luke isn’t even particularly skilled.  Because King doesn’t get too bogged down explaining the meta-science of TK and TP powers, or what exactly is in the shots, readers can focus more on Luke and his friends, which makes this feel like a dark adventure mystery, not a sci-fi novel.

The children at the Institute are constantly subjected to painful and humiliating tests, at some point, the test subject are moved to another facility, the Back Half. They aren’t told when or why, and of course they’re punished for asking. Good behavior is rewarded with tokens, which can be exchanged for candy or other typical kid-friendly snacks, or for booze and cigarettes in the vending machines. Wine coolers and cigarettes might help keep the test subjects calm, and it’s clear that the children won’t survive long enough to worry about long-term health. The test subjects are told their work is incredibly important and they’ll be returned to their families after, but they don’t need Luke’s superintelligence to know that’s not true.

The Institute separates from a generic thriller here because King makes the working world of the Institute just so believable. The scientists and janitors of the Institute do incredibly evil things, but they somehow aren’t cartoon villains. They’re mostly ex-military, a mix of zealots and bullies, all accustomed to regular violence and to taking orders without question. King shows us the crazed dedication at the Institute, and it’s terrifying without being too gory. You don’t need to see something gross in a place with no exits and an on-site crematorium.  And there’s a realistically depressing vibe in the Institute, full of dust, empty rooms and outdated tech, that blends with the vague terrifying references to the children’s upcoming future.

King sets up a drifter, Tim Jamieson, as a counterpoint to the staff at the Institute. An ex-cop, Tim is now a nightwatchman in a random small town. Tim isn’t motivated by money or status, or really by much of anything, so he can’t be manipulated or tempted. He’s just a drifter, taking things as they come. Even his “romance” seems less intentional and desired, and more like a single woman happened to be there, too, and they drifted into a relationship.  Someone without a real drive makes such a great foil to the intense zealots of the Institute staff.

The novel’s conclusion is a satisfying (even if not entirely uplifting) ending to these character’s stories. It’s a reviving return to our world after the unsettling events of the novel, but without feeling fully positive. There have been great losses. There are ominous hints that the children at the Institute don’t have the only powers, that precognition and other forms of knowledge are possible, too, and that the same shadowy, intense figures behind the Institute want that power, too. This is another absolute page-turner, with a solid mix of the realistic everyday and dark shadows just out of sight.