The story follows Lola, a thirty-something magazine editor engaged to a man she affectionately (if somewhat dismissively) calls "Boots." Her stable, if uninspired, life is disrupted when she begins running into an improbable string of ex-boyfriends on the streets of the Lower East Side. What initially feels like a cosmic glitch is revealed to be a social experiment orchestrated by her former boss, Marcus. Utilizing a blend of meditative technology and social media data, Marcus’s "cult" aims to provide "closure" by engineering these encounters, theorizing that if one can successfully navigate their past, they can achieve a more perfect future.
Crosley, Sloane. Cult Classic . New York: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. Download Cult Classic Sloane Crosley epub
In Sloane Crosley’s second novel, Cult Classic , the sharp-witted urbanity that defined her essay collections ( I Was Told There’d Be Cake ) meets a high-concept, quasi-sci-fi premise. Set against the backdrop of a meticulously rendered New York City, the novel explores the haunting nature of romantic history and the modern impulse to commodify and control the messy architecture of the human heart. The story follows Lola, a thirty-something magazine editor
Crosley utilizes the conceit of the "cult" to satirize the contemporary wellness industry and our obsession with digital curation. The novel posits that we are all, in a sense, members of the cult of our own pasts—constantly relitigating old arguments and romanticizing ghosts. Lola’s journey through a gauntlet of former lovers serves as a literalization of the internal "highlight reel" people often play when facing major life milestones like marriage. Crosley, Sloane
While the plot leans into the surreal, the novel’s strength lies in Crosley’s signature prose: acerbic, observational, and deeply funny. She captures the specific claustrophobia of New York dating, where the city acts as a physical archive of failed relationships. However, beneath the cynicism, Cult Classic is a sincere inquiry into whether "closure" is a healthy goal or a dangerous delusion. By the climax, Lola must decide if a life scrubbed of its jagged edges and unresolved mysteries is actually a life worth living.
Ultimately, Cult Classic is a genre-bending "romance" that suggests the most important relationship one must resolve is not with an ex, but with the version of oneself that existed during those relationships. It is a witty, intellectual look at why we look back, and what we lose when we try to manufacture the perfect ending.