The Shining Chapter 18 Summary

The Scrapbook

• It's November 1st when Jack finds the scrapbook. (Jack finds the wasps' nest on October 20th.)
• Danny and Wendy out are hiking.
• In the boiler room, Jack suddenly decides to grab a flashlight and start looking at the stacks of newspaper, and papers and file boxes.
• Ullman must have held something back in his history lesson. The Overlook must have been a hotspot for the "American jet-set" (18.14). Plenty of money to keep the place going. Desk registers from the 1920s to the 1960s (with gaps for when the hotel is closed) show that some of the richest people in the world stayed here. Jack thinks, "The management must have been spectacularly bad" (18.14).
• When Jack sees that almost an hour has gone by he's surprised. This history is fascinating; he might have found his next book! Some kind of historical fiction piece maybe.
• At this moment, Jack sees the scrapbook there on top of some boxes.
• He takes it and opens it. A card falls out.
• On the card is "a raised engraving of the Overlook with every window alight" (18.20). It's an invitation from Horace Derwent (read about him in Chapter 1). The event is "a Masked Ball" to be held on August 29, 1945, the night of the Overlook's grand opening (or reopening).
• (Now we know The Shining is set in 1975.)
• The unmasking will happen at the stroke of midnight.
• Jack is blown away, imaging the scene of wealth and splendor. Jack thinks of a line from Poe: "(The Red Death held sway over all!!)" (18.24).
• He puts the invitation back in the book and starts reading the scrapbook. It begins with a newspaper article from May 15, 1947, describing Derwent's plan to officially open the Overlook.
• It talks about the 1975 pre-opening gala event.
• It states that Derwent is a big player in the gaming industry in Las Vegas. Subsequent pages of the scrapbook spell out the rest of Derwent's rather shady business history. Jack remembers rumors that Derwent has lots of illegal enterprises to go with his legal ones.
• During World War II, Derwent bought a film studio and made lots of money.
• One page in the scrapbook has a news clipping from 1952, describing Derwent's sale of the Overlook.
• In 1961 the hotel was a writer's school, until one the students fell out a third story window, drunk. He might even have jumped.
• A 1964 news clipping suggests that Derwent is involved in the new ownership of the hotel.
• Another 1964 clipping suggest that the Overlook is where organized crime "overlords" (18.70) go to relax, and that "convicted underworld kingpins" have more ownership interest in the hotel than Derwent does.
• Jack can't believe what he's reading and frantically takes notes.
• He recognizes the presidential suite from the photograph in a 1966 clipping, even though the wallpaper is different. In the picture, "The sitting room wall by the door leading into the bedroom and splashed with blood and […] brain matter" (18.84). According to the news story, the Overlook "was the sight of a triple shotgun slaying" (18.86), by organized crime members.
• The final clipping is about the Overlook being sold after the murder.
• Jack looks through the scrapbook to see who it might belong to.
• Just then he hears Wendy calling him.
• For some reason he hides the scrapbook from her as she comes down the stairs.
• Jack cringes because he can tell Wendy is testing the air for liquor smells. Wendy says she knows how hard it's been for him to quit and asks if it's getting better. He says it is.
• They hug and start flirting. Jack uses his French accent: "[…] Jock Torrance would like to teekle you, madame" (18.120).
• They go up the stairs. Jack wonders about ghosts at the Overlook, but tries to shrug the idea away.