Nicole Cuffy’s O Sinners! is not just a literary thriller—it’s a meditation. A choral lament for lost faith, fractured identity, and the soul-hunger that leads people into the arms of charismatic figures and dangerous ideologies. It is a mystery of the mind and the heart. Told in triptych—Faruq Zaidi’s present-day investigation into a cult, Odo’s past as a Black soldier in the Vietnam War, and fragments of a documentary screenplay—Cuffy’s novel is both cinematic and interior. The narrative doesn’t merely explore the appeal of cults, but something far deeper: the holy hunger that makes us seek. And sometimes, submit.
Following the critically acclaimed Dances, Nicole Cuffy returns with a voice sharpened by insight, empathy, and a poet’s restraint. The result is O Sinners!—a story as haunting as a hymn sung off-key in a dark cathedral. With its genre-blurring construction (mystery thriller, horror, and literary fiction), O Sinners! offers an immersive, uneasy reading experience that resists clean categorization.
Plot Weaving: The Religion of Broken Things
At its core, O Sinners! follows Faruq Zaidi, a Pakistani-American journalist mourning the recent loss of his father, a devout Muslim. Grief-stricken and spiritually adrift, Faruq immerses himself in the world of “the nameless”—a California-based cult led by Odo, a Vietnam War veteran turned spiritual leader. The Nameless live by the 18 Utterances, doctrines both mystical and seductive (“ALL SUFFERING IS DISTORTION,” “SEE ONLY BEAUTY,” “THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE NAMELESS”).
Faruq’s assignment—to write an investigative longform feature—quickly turns personal. As he embeds deeper into the movement, staying first with high-functioning San Francisco devotees Clover and Aeschylus and eventually entering the cult’s Forbidden City in the redwoods, the line between observer and participant begins to blur.
Parallel to Faruq’s narrative are two rich threads:
- Odo’s Past in Vietnam – A deeply affecting look at Black soldiers, racial trauma, and survival, Odo’s transformation from infantryman to prophet is slowly, meticulously unveiled. The camaraderie among the soldiers (Preach, Silk, Crazy Horse, Bigger) acts as both mirror and foreshadowing for the dynamics within the Nameless.
- The Screenplay “Nero” – Interspersed scenes from a documentary examining the Nameless through the lens of religious extremism. The juxtaposition of Biblical allusions and scholarly interviews with visuals of followers in the cult offers a chilling, meta-narrative commentary.
This triadic structure isn’t just clever—it’s crucial. Each narrative strand interrogates the central question: What is it that we seek from cults—and, inevitably, from each other?
Character Study: Faruq and Odo—Two Sinners in Search of God
Faruq Zaidi
Faruq is a compelling, contradictory protagonist. He is intellectual but spiritually starved. Logical but emotionally fragmented. His relationship with his late father—devoted, devout, judgmental—haunts every step he takes toward Odo. Nicole Cuffy renders Faruq with enormous care: the scent of his mother’s scarf, the groaning brownstone, the chill of post-shower silence—all evoke a man teetering between memory and loss, skepticism and yearning.
Faruq’s transformation is not overt. There are no thunderclaps. Instead, Cuffy charts his descent into the Nameless with gentle steps—words like “strip down” become mantras; attention becomes affection; resistance becomes reverence. His slow unraveling is more terrifying than any horror plotline.
Odo
Odo is magnetic in absence before he is magnetic in presence. By the time we meet him fully, we already understand him as myth, metaphor, messiah. He is the kind of leader who finds the hole inside you—and fills it with himself. Whether he is a false prophet or a visionary is almost beside the point. His theology is less about belief than surrender. Odo isn’t just a character—he’s a gravitational force.
Writing Style: Ethereal, Precise, and Seductively Lyrical
Nicole Cuffy’s prose is ghosted with lyricism, never overindulgent, always sharp. She writes grief like smoke—visible, shifting, impossible to contain. Dialogue carries the musicality of lived speech, especially among the soldiers. The screenplay segments read like a documentary you’ve watched and forgotten—fragments resurfacing in dream.
Her sentences often bear dual weight: literal and symbolic. Take the phrase “strip down,” repeated by cult members—it becomes an invitation, a challenge, a spiritual command. There’s horror in how language erodes, reforms, and reclaims power throughout the novel.
In adapting her style here, one must adopt an emotional honesty, an analytical curiosity, and an ability to hold tension between contradictory truths. Cuffy never offers a resolution where ambiguity will do.
Themes: Faith, Identity, and the Cost of Belonging
1. The Religion of Grief
Faruq’s journey isn’t just physical—it’s theological. In the vacuum left by his father’s death and his loss of Islamic faith, he seeks structure, ritual, belonging. The Nameless fill that need with rituals that are both nourishing and insidious.
2. The Power of Charisma
Odo is the epitome of dangerous magnetism. O Sinners! asks: What makes someone follow another into fire? The answer, Cuffy suggests, is rarely logic. It is ache. Want. A longing to be seen and understood. That’s what Odo provides—even as he manipulates.
3. Race and Power
From Odo’s Vietnam experience to Faruq’s racialized encounters in New York, the novel threads identity politics into its spiritual fabric. Odo’s Blackness informs his theology; Faruq’s Brownness shapes his skepticism. There’s no ignoring the racial lens through which both men must navigate their worlds.
4. Language and Control
The 18 Utterances read like scripture and advertising slogans. They blur into the kind of spiritual marketing that real-world cults and influencers use. O Sinners! critiques the commodification of spirituality without mocking belief itself.
Praise and Critique: A Balanced View
What Works Brilliantly
- Genre-bending structure: Cuffy’s seamless transition between prose, documentary script, and historical fiction is masterful.
- Emotional authenticity: The book never reduces Faruq’s grief or Odo’s complexity to caricature.
- Atmospheric writing: Whether in Vietnam’s burning haze or California’s redwoods, Cuffy immerses readers fully.
- Intellectual depth: The book invites theological, political, and psychological analysis without sacrificing plot.
Where It Falters
- Ambiguity overload: While ambiguity is the novel’s strength, it occasionally becomes a liability. Some threads—particularly the resolution of the documentary narrative—feel underdeveloped.
- Limited female presence: Although Quiver and Clover are given intrigue, the novel’s gender dynamics lean heavily male, and the female characters often exist in relation to Faruq or Odo.
- Pacing dips: The book’s meditative rhythm may test readers looking for a more traditional mystery-thriller trajectory. The central mystery isn’t “solved” so much as absorbed.
Comparisons and Context: If You Liked…
- The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon – for its intellectual dissection of faith and cultism.
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt – for its psychological unraveling of morally ambiguous characters.
- Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer – for its real-life religious investigation parallels.
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – for its historical-spiritual lineage and multi-narrative ambition.
Final Thoughts: A Sin Worth Committing
O Sinners! is not a book for readers who need answers. It’s for those willing to sit with discomfort, to reckon with the ways faith and doubt share the same skin. Nicole Cuffy has crafted a work that is intellectually provocative, spiritually resonant, and narratively ambitious.
It asks not only What do we believe? but Why do we need to?
This is a novel that lingers like incense. Unsettling. Alluring. And, perhaps, a little bit sacred.