The Shining by Stephen King

Jack goes to an interview at The Overlook Hotel to see of they will hire him to keep an eye on it during its off-season. Jack is an aspiring writer and former alcoholic. While he is in Colorado, his wife is at home with their son Danny. She seems to be worried because Jack is taking a long time at the meeting. Jack does get the job and then is shown around the huge hotel and given instructions on how to take care of it. Danny, the son, waits for his father on the curb. He is a very peculiar boy, claiming he has a boy, Tony, living inside his mouth which can later be interpreted as his clairvoyant guide. It is shared little by little that Jack's last drink was when he broke Danny's arm after Danny had scattered all his papers on the floor one night. Things start off alright, then Danny starts ti get these horrific visions that appear to be warning him. His father also starts to inhibit some changes, his behavior becomes erratic and unusual. Once at the Overlook, the chef confesses to Danny that he has a gift his grandmother called "the shining" and he suspects he also has it. He warns Danny of the dangers in the hotel and how he is susceptible to them. It is learned that Jack had an abusive father and he fears he will become him. Then Danny has a vision and Tony visits, his parents bring him back when they notice he has been in the bathroom for a long time. That night, the empty wasps' nest Jack gave Danny suddenly is filled with wasps again, in his room. Days later, Jack finds the Overlook's history and at the same time, Danny contemplates entering room 217 the same room the chef told him to stay out of. Danny believes that staying at the hotel will help his family stay together but it will actually tear them apart. Then Danny decides to enter the room, and he feels a corpse' hand on his neck. Jack has a dream in which his father tells him to kill Wendy and Danny, he soon finds out he is sleep walking when he awakes to himself  breaking a radio. They find Danny in real bad shape with bruises everywhere, and Wendy assumes it was Jack. Danny tells them he saw a lady in the room and when Jack goes to investigate& finds nothing they become worried about Danny. Things start to go from bad to worse when Danny is attacked by the hedge animals and they find confetti in the elevator car. Danny decides to give the chef a psychic call which he receives and he starts to make his way from Florida to COlorado. One morning Danny sees a man in a dog costume crawling on the floor and he threatens Danny. Then Wendy finds Jack drunk as a skunk passed out downstairs and when she awakes him he begins to threaten and choke her. Wendy and Danny then lock Jack up in the pantry fearing for their lives. Grady, a man that once took care of the hotel but was driven to madness and murdered his family, comes and frees Jack on the condition that he kills Wendy and Danny. The chef, Halloran makes it to the hotel but is attacked by hedge animals. Wendy locks herself in the bathroom after Jack has been after her. He gets into the bathroom, clawing at the door. Danny finally meets Tony, who is revealed to be Danny in 10 years. Danny can see that a piece of his father is still alive, that the hotel hasn't completely possessed him. Danny then realizes that Jack hasn't been letting out the pressure from the boiler and knows it will explode. He tells Jack and he goes to look to it. Danny, Halloran and his mother take this chance to escape. The Overlook explodes with Jack in it. Halloran moves to Maine and Wendy&Danny plan to move to Maryland.
The novel takes a look at the human psyche. It shows that isolation can have very harmful effects to a person's mind. When a person is in one place with little or no contact with the outside world they begin to go a bit mad, cabin fever. This was true for Jack, although the hotel did possess him. People's minds have been trained to socialize and when that is taken away it doesn't quite know what to do or how to cope so it begins to make hallucinations and things spiral. Time alone also gives people time to overanalyze everything and to bring up old skeletons. Jack was plagued with a violent upbringing and starts to see that he himself is a lot like his abusive father which frightens him.
The author's tone is very eerie and thrilling. He uses more of a psychological fear rather than a shock type of fear where things just pop up. These visions that Jack and Danny see can lead people to believe they were schizophrenic but once these hallucinations leave marks it makes one question whether or not these people are sane driven to madness by the hotel.