Originally from central Indiana, thriller and mystery author August Norman has called Los Angeles home for two decades, writing for and/or appearing in movies, television, stage productions, web series, and even commercial advertising. A lover and champion of crime fiction, Norman is an active member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime (National and LA), and regularly attends the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference. In addition, August is a founding member and regular performer with LA's longest running improv comedy show, "Opening Night: The Improvised Musical."
Last year, Crooked Lane Books released Come and Get Me, the debut novel in Norman's series featuring intrepid journalist Caitlin Bergman. On September 8, Caitlin returns in the follow-up novel, Sins of the Mother, about which Kirkus Reviews said, "Action-loving readers are the real winners in this offbeat thriller."
This time, the case is closer to home when Caitlin goes in search of her mother, whom she believed dead for the past forty years. But when a rural sheriff invites Caitlin to the woods of coastal Oregon to identify her mother's remains, Caitlin drops everything to face the woman she's spent a lifetime hating. Unfortunately, the body — abandoned on the land of a reclusive cult, the Daughters of God — was left faceless. Instead, Caitlin finds the diary of a woman obsessed with the end of the world, one that hints the cult's spiritual leader knows the identity of Caitlin's real father.
She's not the only one looking for clues in her mother's writing. Johnny Larsen, a violent white supremacist whose family runs the county, thinks the Daughters of God kidnapped his teen-aged daughter...and will do anything to get her back. Caught between the local white supremacists ready to take action and the radical cult her mother belonged to, Caitlin must unravel the town's secrets before the fiery prophesied end of days arrives.
August Norman stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing the book:
"The Cult Leader in Me"
While plotting my second Caitlin Bergman thriller, Sins of the Mother, I wanted to explore the relationship between the families we’re born into and the families we choose. I’d also been researching another type of chosen family at the time: religious cults. To combine the story of Caitlin’s search for her birth mother with that of a woman who would abandon her life in Los Angeles to commune with strangers in the woods of Oregon, I knew I needed to explore my own inner cult leader.
Like a hand held over a candle’s flame just until the point of pain, my fascination with people who blindly follow the dogma of self-professed prophets, often giving up friends, families, sexual boundaries, economic treasures, and original perceptions of reality, is thinly protected with a sense of “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Of course, I mean my God, not their God, because obviously my belief in a higher power that influences the World Series, but somehow ignores childhood diseases, is perfectly acceptable. See? There’s a fine, slippery, dangerous line between them, me, and a spiritual abyss. So, what is the difference between a mass theology and a cult?
Miriam-Webster defines a cult as a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous.
While the world’s major religions often require personal sacrifice through fasting, tithing, or adherence to regimented moral constructs, cults take the weirdness level up to the sky.
Does your religion have a sex-abstaining savior who walked the earth two thousand years ago? Ours lives amongst us in a compound, gets down with everybody, and thinks vows to anyone but himself are mere suggestions.
Do you believe in space travel? We think that evil souls from a galactic war latch onto everyday people and can only be detected by our scanning machine. For a little money, and the recorded confession of your darkest secrets that we swear won’t be used to manipulate you, we’ll be glad to remove them.
Does your clergy maintain that living a moral life means that time will continue as long as we are good to each other? Ours sets a date on a calendar when the world will end in fire, guarantees it will happen in our lifetime, and demands that we sell all of our earthly possessions to fund a theater where our leader can do his performance art.
If these examples sound familiar, that’s because they’ve been cherry-picked from genuine religious movements of notoriety from the last century. While I’m exploring these concepts with a tone of humor, the damage that these groups have created is devastating in its reach and duration. Losing a family member to a fringe religious group, let alone growing up under a cult’s indoctrination, is life-shattering, soul-crushing, and often requires hospitalization and life-long therapy.
(And yes, I’m aware that mainstream religions can and have been just as damaging, especially in the context of global warfare and oppression, but this is about cults!)
Sketching out my own group, the Daughters of God, I needed a leader that even I, a jaded crime fiction author, would find both believable and appealing. Like many other creative hopefuls, I moved to Hollywood in my early 20s only to be lost in a metropolitan area of 12 million people from every country on the planet amidst an extreme range of wealth and poverty. Like anyone, I wanted to feel unique and be recognized. A good cult leader knows where to find people looking for definition, and it will come as no surprise to anyone who’s studied these organizations to find that a great many have started and prospered right here in Southern California. Therefore, Desmond Pratten, my fictional guru, starts as a movie star-handsome yoga instructor in West Hollywood, an area where many people seek physical perfection, surrounded by young and beautiful hopefuls looking for their big break.
Beyond recognition, many in this clique of young Hollywood want another step up their moral ladder, a special purpose. Who doesn’t want to feel like they’re making the world a better place, especially when it doesn’t seem like stardom will arrive anytime soon? Not only are Desmond’s followers getting in shape, but each is told they’ve been brought to his circle for a special purpose – to gather those lost to society and save the environment.
Still, at that level not much is happening that’s worse than an accountability group, so Desmond offers his followers another incentive, a direct conduit to God. Driven mostly by the need to satiate a wealthy defense contractor’s widow who has guilt-ridden visions of an apocalypse fueled by her husband’s inventions, Desmond lets the woman’s dreams become the group’s mythology, stepping in as the guide toward her noble goals while partnering with her corrupt niece, a confident, sensual companion who will do anything to avoid working a legitimate job. With the widow’s delusions, her niece’s help, and Desmond’s ability to read the needs of his well-meaning, soul-searching followers, the Daughters of God could easily attract a broad variety of followers with a mix of free love, intense-to-the-point-of-hypnotic physical activity, and a connection with the divine. Throw in some rules keeping everything legal, such as mandatory birth control and no one admitted under the age of consent, and file for a religious exemption, Desmond could keep the whole thing going for the rest of his life.
Of course, the problem with building a religion on a woman’s belief that the world’s end is on the horizon is that she might actually name a date and time. What will happen to Desmond’s followers when the world doesn’t end, and what would he do to keep his kingdom intact? Above all, what would happen if an investigative reporter, searching for the woman who abandoned her as a child to join this cult, showed up to shine a light on the man behind the curtain?
The cult leader in me wouldn’t give up his life at the top of the mountain without a fight.
You can learn more about August Norman and his books via his website and also the upcoming virtual book launch hosted by Anne's Book Carnival in Tustin, CA. Or you can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Bookbub.
