Nicole Cuffy in conversation with Veena Dinavahi

Nicole Cuffy reads from her new novel

O Sinners!

published by One World

ONE OF THE SEASON’S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS: Time, Rolling Stone, Vulture, Men’s Health, WNYC, Electric Lit, Feminist Book Club, Lit Hub

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist processing the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed himself in a cult known only as “the nameless,” because its members refused to label themselves. Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran named Odo, “the nameless” adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.” Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of “the nameless,” extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult’s inner workings and alluring teachings. But as he gets closer to Odo, Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come to terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo’s spell.

Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads―Faruq’s present-day investigation, Odo’s time as an infantryman during the Vietnam War alongside three other Black soldiers before the formation of the movement, and a documentary script that recounts the clash between “the nameless” and a Texas fundamentalist church―O Sinners! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel asks: What is it that we seek from the people we admire and, inevitably, from one another?

Nicole Cuffy is the author of Dances, longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Cuffy has an MFA from The New School and is a lecturer at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University. Her work can be found in the New England Review; The Masters Review, Volume VI (curated by Roxane Gay); Chautauqua; and Blue Mesa Review. Her chapbook, Atlas of the Body, won the Chautauqua Janus Prize and was a finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Veena Dinavahi is an Indian American writer who divides her time between Connecticut and New York. Her personal essays have appeared in The Rumpus and Pulp Magazine. She holds a degree in psychology from Columbia University and currently works in the fashion industry. The True Happiness Company is her first book.

Critical praise for O Sinners!

“Nicole Cuffy has opened a door into a world where mares and wolves live alongside grief and love and memory, each its own creature, each equally dreamlike and real.”—Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning

“A gorgeously written literary excavation of belonging and belief.”—Emma Donoghue, The Boston Globe

“While there have been quite a few novels approaching the subject of cult indoctrination lately, Nicole Cuffy’s literary marvel stands head and shoulders above the rest.”—Literary Hub

“What’s the line between a religion and a cult? . . . One of the most engrossing elements of Nicole Cuffy’s second novel . . . is how it dwells comfortably in the fuzziness, making for both a clever literary mystery novel and a meditation on the nature of faith.”—The Los Angeles Times

“Dances, Cuffy’s first novel, explored the physical and psychological toll felt by a Black ballerina in a classical company. Cuffy brings that same clear-eyed honesty and fearlessness to O Sinners!, but on a whole new level, exploring the ways rage and racism can shape a life, and how doubt can lead us to new paths of belief.”—BookPage

Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.