OCCULTED

A graphic memoir that documents Rose’s experience growing up in a cult.

Rose spent most of her childhood with her mother in the Temple, in San Diego, located down the road from the compound of Heaven’s Gate, whose members took part in a mass suicide in 1997. Selectively mute, young Amy is under the control of the manipulative, abusive Leader. Chain-smoking and wearing a perpetual scowl, the Leader dislikes children, using them only when they are considered beneficial. Separated from her father and siblings, Amy sees little of her ailing mother, spending her days doing chores and caring for the children of potential members who arrive for free yoga classes. Cut off from most outside influences, Amy loves books and is delighted when she finds the Leader’s secret library. When the Leader deems her too much trouble and gives her away to a kind, childless couple who attend yoga classes but don’t live at the Temple, Amy experiences the outside world—and the public library—for the first time. Finally, as an adult, she makes sense of her past with the benefit of hindsight. Her journey is harrowing, filled with moments of acute misery juxtaposed against flashes of unabashed joy. Lee’s black-and-white manga-styled art is dazzling, with keenly detailed facial expressions, adding evocative depth to the story. Because the story is told mainly through a child’s perspective, some details (what illness Amy's mother had, why her father never came for her) are omitted. All characters present White.

Insightful and riveting.