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Sunday, December 24, 2017

The Girls by Emma Cline

The Girls by Emma Cline
Disturbing and patient portrait of a young woman who falls prey to a Manson-style cult in Califoria in the late sixties. She is exonerated of any murder charges, but becomes a minor public figure. In the novel, she reminisces about the steps in life that took her to the Ranch and got her ensnared in the cult.

The novel was well written, gripping, just lurid enough to be mildly titillating and deeply sad.

I read in the Times that Ms. Cline has been engaged in a fairly nasty series of lawsuits against an ex-boyfriend, with whom she lived while writing this novel. He has alleged that she cribbed some of the material in this novel from his work and that she “hacked his email.” While I know nothing about this case, I will say that I’d be absolutely shocked if this novel had been written by a man. It just rings too true with the awkward experiences that I suspect characterize girlhood.

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