Summer of
1969. The summer which will change everything for 14-year-old Evie. With her
parents, after their divorce, looking for new partners, her best friend Connie
suddenly reserved, Evie finds herself alone when she meets Suzanne. The young
woman is a couple of years older and fascinates the teenager at once. Suzanne
introduces her to a community at a ranch where Russell acts as some kind of messiah.
Everybody is easy and free there, Evie finds the love she is denied by her
parents who seem to have forgotten about their daughter. But slowly the small
sect develops into a very bad direction and their leader has a violent plan.
Emma Cline’s
novel is loosely based on the famous Charles Manson commune and murder of
Sharon Tate. Yet, this is not in the focus of the novel which is narrated from
the point of view of Evie. It is easy to see and understand how she is attracted
by the cult, what the people there can give her that her parents cannot and how
they can easily manipulate her in accepting abuse and turning this into
something she herself almost demands. It is especially the character of Russell
which could convince me, how his charisma can attract people and make them
follow him without asking questions. Forlorn souls are easy prey, influenced
and finally maneuvered into headless soldiers.
There is an
underlying sadness in the story, being told in retrospect you can see that the
girl from then never managed to build good relationships afterwards, that she
still is lonesome and prone to any kind of affection. This design of a
character is a real success because these kind of people exist in the real
world and they are a danger due to their weakness and frailty. Looking at the Middle
East right now, we can easily see that what Russell does in the novel is an
actuality for many especially young men and women.
All in all,
a portrait of a generation who wanted to be free and came under tyranny, of a
girl who wanted to be loved and was pushed even further away, of human behavior
in its most evil shape.
