The Institute

The Institute is a 2019 American science fiction-horror thriller novel by Stephen King, published by Scribner. The book follows twelve-year-old genius Luke Ellis. When his parents are murdered, he is kidnapped by intruders and awakens in the Institute, a facility that houses other abducted children who have telepathy or telekinesis. The Institute was published on September 10, 2019, and met with generally positive reviews. Plot Tim Jamieson leaves his job in Florida and prepares to head to New York City. By coincidence, en route, he gives up a seat on a plane and finds himself in the small town of DuPray, South Carolina. A decorated former policeman, Tim takes a job as a local patrolman, and soon develops a relationship with a deputy, Wendy Gullickson. Another storyline begins in suburban Minneapolis with Luke Ellis, a twelve-year-old intellectual prodigy with mild telekinetic abilities. One night, intruders silently murder Luke's parents and kidnap him. Luke wakes up in a room almost identical to his own at "the Institute," a facility secretly located deep in the forests of Maine. The Institute houses a number of other kidnapped children, each with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy. Luke befriends several other kids: Kalisha Benson, Nick Wilholm, George Iles, Iris Stanhope, Helen Simms, and later ten-year-old Avery Dixon, in the area known as Front Half. Mrs. Sigsby, the Institute's director, and her staff are dedicated to extracting the special talents from the children - known as TPs (telepaths) and TKs (telekinetics). Experiments and torture are performed on the children to try to enhance their talents, as well as to awaken TP abilities in TKs and vice versa. Once the experiments are done, the children "graduate" to Back Half. None of the children who have gone to Back Half have ever been seen again. Luke begins to develop weak TP abilities due to the experimentation but keeps it secret. After Kalisha graduates to Back Half, she is able to send telepathic messages to Avery, an advanced TP. Luke comes to believe that in Back Half, the children's collective abilities are weaponized for assassinations until the strain kills them. Luke becomes desperate to escape and get help before he graduates.