Cult X

Name: Cult X
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Fuminori Nakamura
ISBN: 9781501987441

Author: Fuminori Nakamura, Kalau Almony

Narrator: Brian Nishii

Unabridged: 14 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/22/2018

Categories: Fiction, Suspense & Thriller, Crime, Noir

Synopsis

The magnum opus by Akutagawa Prize-winner Fuminori Nakamura, Cult X is a story that dives into the psychology of fringe religion, obsession, and social disaffection. When Toru Narazaki's girlfriend, Ryoko, disappears, he tries to track her down, despite the warnings of a private detective he's hired to find her. Ryoko's past is shrouded in mystery, but the one concrete clue to her whereabouts is a previous address where she lived: in a compound in the heart of Tokyo, with a group that seems to be a cult led by a charismatic guru with a revisionist Buddhist scheme of life, death, and society. Narazaki plunges into the secretive world of the cult, ready to expose himself to any of the guru's brainwashing tactics if it means he can learn the truth about Ryoko. But the cult isn't what he expected, and he has no idea of the bubbling violence beneath its surface. Inspired by the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Cult X is an exploration of what draws individuals into extremism. This multi-faceted novel is nothing less than a tour de force, capturing the connections between astrophysics, neuroscience, and religion. It is an invective against predatory corporate consumerism and exploitative geopolitics, and it is a love story about compassion in the face of nihilism.

About Fuminori Nakamura

Fuminori Nakamura has won numerous prizes for his writing, including Japan’s prestigious Ōe Prize; the David L. Goodis Award for Noir Fiction; and the Akutagawa Prize. The Thief, his first novel to be translated into English, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His other novels include Cult X, The Gun, The Kingdom, Evil and the Mask, The Boy in the Earth, My Annihilation, and Last Winter, We Parted. He was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lark on March 17, 2022

I suspect this novel (which I just upgraded from 1 to 3 stars, as part of my Cult-X rehab) is going to begin to grow on me, for the way it challenges all my assumptions about what fiction should and shouldn't be--in the same way that another shocker, Almanac of the Dead, keeps growing on me, ever si......more

Goodreads review by Ashley on June 30, 2020

*2.5 stars rounded up to 3* This was a difficult book for me to read. On paper it sounded fantastic and right up my alley but in reality it was a chore for me to get through and I was quite disappointed. I was expecting something gritty and dark and disturbing but what I got was dry and clinical and......more

Goodreads review by Karmologyclinic on June 12, 2019

I intensely enjoyed reading Cult X. I was baffled with the low rating it has on Goodreads. Surely, it has some sex scenes and some of them non-consensual, a bit of violence too, but in the context of describing a brainwashing cult and a sociopath, I think reality has surpassed Nakamura's imagination......more

Goodreads review by Lizy on December 26, 2017

Note: I received this book as a free ARC from Copperfish Books, where I work. Initial thoughts: 1. I think this book destroyed me. 2. I'm normally a 200 page a day kinda girl on my days off. This had me at 50 pages a day because it's so deep. 3. I could see this being a book I re-read every year. I co......more

Goodreads review by 11811 (Eleven) on July 14, 2018

This is a heavily philosophical crime novel. More philosophy than crime. Not for everyone but I really dug it. 4.5 stars.......more