There are cult books, and then there are cult books. An example of the former might be John Williams’s novel Stoner, or John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Books with a niche following that sometimes—like in the case of Catcher in the Rye or On the Road—explode to become part of the canon. The latter are books about cults, real or fictional. There is Lawrence Wright’s recent Scientology exposé, Going Clear. Charles Portis, the reclusive author of True Grit and The Dog of the South, has achieved the rare cult double; he’s a cult author who has written about a cult. His 1985 novel Masters of Atlantis concerns the plight of the Gnomons, a group dedicated to sharing the mysteries of Atlantis.
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