He delivers once again as DuPray is home to a diverse group of colorful characters, like Orphan Annie, a homeless, conspiracy theory zealot, and Norbert Hollister, the old-timer motel manager.įor 75 pages, King makes the reader nice and cozy in DuPray, but then (almost abruptly) takes us to Minnesota, where we meet our main protagonist Luke Ellis, twelve-year-old genius with mild telekinetic abilities.

Throughout his career, King has used his idyllic view of the “small town life” to evoke a strong sense of nostalgia, warmth, and longing ( Salem’s Lot, It, Needful Things). His wandering eventually leads him to the rural town of DuPray, North Carolina, where he becomes the town’s “night knocker”, patrolling the streets and alleys for any wrongdoing. The novel opens with Tim Jameison, an ex-cop forced to resign because of an off-duty incident, hitchhiking his way up north to New York, impassively taking odd jobs along the way.

It’s filled with traditional “King” tropes (small town, kids with psychic abilities, shady government), but it’s his brilliance as a story-teller that is most apparent. The Institute, his 61st and most recent novel, is further proof of this notion. He has created some of the most nefarious characters in literature, from the demonic clown of It to the psychotic nurse in Misery. He has been described by many as the “King of Horror”, but to his most loyal readers (his Constant Readers), that name is a gross misconception of King as a writer. In a career that spans over five decades, Stephen King has been terrifying his readers with his writing. The Institute – Photo taken by Eric Landro

The institute a novel