Cult Fiction: “Good” and “Bad” Communities in the Contemporary American Novel

Abstract

This article examines the way in which three contemporary novelists have interpreted the proliferation of cults and other independent communities in the USA. Thomas Pynchon's Vineland is read as a critique of individualism that regrets the loss of collective identity and purpose. A subsequent reading of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love demonstrates the destructive consequences of individual submission that draws parallels between the dynamics of “cult” communities and mainstream society. This is developed further in a discussion of Don DeLillo's Mao II, which is represented as an attempt to reconcile libertarian and communitarian discourses, while remaining mindful of the dangers of both.