Cult status

A group of interesting young women, a desert ranch, a charismatic young man with some strange ideas. It’s 1969 when 14-year-old Evie, a disaffected middle-class teen, meets Suzanne, a follower of Russell, the prophet of these barefoot hippie girls, and her life starts to swirl out of control. Emma Cline’s debut, The Girls: A Novel, (Random House, $27) is based on the Manson Family and has some definite familiarity, but rather than focusing on the man at the center, a middle-aged Evie looks back on the women—especially Suzanne—who made the cult possible. With poetic language, Cline shows us precisely how the rage of young women could become violence with a nudge in the right direction and offers a portrait of the male “leader” as nothing but a spark. The real fuel is female.