In our atomized world, nothing thrills or terrifies us more than the group. A collection of personalities and wills assembled toward a common goal–what could go wrong? Here are a few novels exploring the particular dramas of voluntary organizations, where passionate ideals collide with ego and everyday reality.
Birnam Wood is a group of crunchy eco-activists who repurpose abandoned or underutilized land for gardening projects. The ethical purity of the collective is challenged when an eccentric billionaire takes an interest in the project (and a romantic interest in the project's founder). This is a pacy thriller that depicts the types of relationships that form in a group of committed activists who collapse the boundaries between the personal and political.
The Secret History is a very fun yet disturbing book that influenced the dark academia trend in fiction. A group of students at an elite university get a little too into their Greek classics studies under the tutelage of a charismatic professor. Their individual relationships become entangled with their frenzied commitment to ancient values.
Rachel Kushner's buzzy Creation Lake follows an American spy called "Sadie Smith" who infiltrates a French anarcho-primitivist collective on behalf of French authorities, who see the group as a threat. The book alternates between Sadie's narration and ruminations on the political implications of prehistory by the group's leader.
Mishima is very intense. His novel The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea follows a group of angsty and idealistic teen boys who reject the compromises of adulthood. Their fierce idealism erupts in acts of shocking violence.
Parable of the Sower is a1993 sci fi mainstay is set in 2024(!). Lauren Olamina lives in a walled community on the outskirts of Los Angeles in a post-collapse world. Afflicted with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her physically feel others' pain, she and her community weather catastrophe. Lauren begins to develop a new religion based on a vision for the future on a ruined planet.
Iris Murdoch had two parallel careers as a popular novelist and an Oxford philosopher, and her readable yet philosophically rich fiction reflects that. In The Bell, a lay religious community on the outskirts of an abbey is depicted in all its complexity and intrigue. Despite some scandalous plot developments, the novel resists cynicism, portraying the characters’ struggle for goodness with nuance.
What’s your favorite group-gone-wrong novel?
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