Winter caretaker, hotel, family of three.

Jack Torrance takes a job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the mountains above Sidewinder, Colorado. He has lost a teaching post for hitting a student and he has stopped drinking. He arrives with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, who is six.

The cook, Dick Halloran, tells Danny that some people can shine and that he can do it too, and that the hotel holds things. Halloran leaves for Florida with the rest of the staff. Snow closes the road.

Danny sees things in the corridors. He is told to stay out of room 217. He goes in. The hedge animals in the garden change position when nobody is looking at them.

Jack finds a scrapbook in the basement with clippings about the hotel's owners and guests, and starts writing about the hotel instead of the play he came to finish. He talks to a barman who is not there. The boiler has to be vented twice a day or the pressure climbs.

Halloran picks something up in Florida and starts driving north. The last section takes place over one night. The boiler is not vented.