Cult by Warren Adler

​       I love a good cult story so much I’ll often settle for an average one. Cult is just one of those themes, like circus or magicians, that immediately grab my attention. Plus I’ve read Adler’s short stories before and quite enjoyed them, so this was an easy choice.
       So is it a good cult story or an average one? Well, more of the latter, I’m afraid. There was something definitely missing here, as one might have expected from a book so unimaginatively named.
     When I try to nail down exactly what that something is…it isn’t quite the not very likeable characters, it’s more of the inflexible and unyielding moral rigidity of the novel. Very black and white tonally. The author’s ascribes high EVIL categories to things foregoing moral nuances all too easily and frequently.
     Or maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was the main characters themselves. I just didn’t like them very much.
      But once upon a time they liked each other very much, Naomi and Barney. A Jewish liberal dogooder and an Irish apolitical moneycentric businessman. Please note I am only mentioning the characters’ religious/cultural makers because the author makes such a huge deal about it. They loved each other so much, but it just wasn’t enough for Naomi to ignore the fact that Barney didn’t miss out on any sleep over the many social injustices that she would so intensely obsessed over. So, they split up and Barney like a proper man of his ideals and ideas married a pretty young thang and had a baby with her. And when several years later the pretty young thang ended up in a cult, Barney came crawling back to Naomi to use her political connections to try and get her out.
     Since this specific cult is properly legal, this goes against much of Naomi’s ideology, but nevertheless she proceeds to help Barney, because she’d never miss out on the opportunity to do good. And also, she never really got over Barney.
      And so it becomes a great stand off. On one side Naomi with her good intentions and Barney with his hired deprogrammers and on the other side a bunch of thoroughly brainwashed cultists willing to die for their cause. Guess who wins. Well, the correct answer would be no one, it’s too ugly of a game for proper wins.
       There’s a local sheriff involved too, but that’s fairly extraneous. The main plot is Naomi/Barney against the cult. The main character is really Naomi and the main theme is how much she’s willing to compromise her principles. Is brainwashing the brainwashed back to normal too much? She thinks so. And I suppose Adler meant her as an admirable character, but her nuanceless rigid morality is tedious, she’s the liberal people hate when they hate liberals, so dedicated to taking the high road she’s willing to ignore the road signs. She’s slappingly obnoxiously moralistic and to highlight that there’s a constant juxtaposition to the moralfree bottom line money wielding kinda guy that Barney is, which is all too unsubtle and obvious.
      The thing is Adler was a genuinely good writer in that he had that organic storytelling quality to his narratives, it’s the plot here that leaves a lot to be desired. It’s almost like it’s too didactic or pedantic or something, what other reason there would be for such fablelike strict moral codes. It means well, but it’s just too blatantly self righteous to enjoy outright. The components end up arranging themselves into something that tends to veer into a slightly hysterical melodrama. Reads quickly, though. Thanks Netgalley.