Book Review: Gaslight by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and Sara Shepard

It’s taken years, but Rebecca has built a wonderful life with her adoring husband Tom and their two beautiful children, Roscoe and Charlie. They live in a nice house in a suburb of Carson City, Nevada, just a short drive away from where Tom’s parents stay. Rebecca doesn’t like to talk about her own parents much. In fact, there’s not a lot about her past that Rebecca is willing to share, despite Tom’s openness about his own battles with drug addiction.

So when an unexpected figure shows up on their doorstep one morning, neither of them really knows how to react. To Tom, Danny Martin looks like the classic junkie looking to rob an old friend in hopes of affording her next fix. Rebecca, on the other hand, knows better: Danny would never “pollute” her body with drugs. Still, it’s a shock to Rebecca to find her former best friend looking so down at heel, especially after an adolescence spent envying the other girl:

Deep down, Rebecca was always comparing herself to Danny. She was so much prettier than Rebecca. And Danny, once you brushed the cobwebs and darkness from her, was so…captivating. She was pretty and bubbly and had this starry-eyed optimism that Rebecca sometimes couldn’t muster. She sang […] in a beautiful voice, and she was artistic, and she always said she had big plans for the world, even if she didn’t know what they were. Danny also had a mom that adored and celebrated her, versus Rebecca’s mother who didn’t even notice when she got an A on a test. Yeah, some crappy things had happened to Danny–like the stuff about her dad leaving–and, fine, Danny lived in an apartment instead of Rebecca’s enormous house, but who cared about that?

Rebecca’s shock at Danny’s unannounced appearance is quickly superseded by her sense of self-preservation, as she hustles Danny out the door. While she wants to know why and how Danny found her, she doesn’t want Tom to hear anything that might lead to uncomfortable conversations that she’d rather not have.

Once Rebecca and Danny are alone, Danny confesses that she’s run away from the cult she’s been involved with for the past ten years. The self-improvement group called ISB was once everything Danny thought she’d ever need. After the charismatic Ben Rahm recruited her in high school, Danny became obsessed with becoming his best disciple, no matter what it took: 

But above all this is another feeling roiling in her gut–desire. Drive. Danny wants to be on that stage. She wants to be the one holding Ben’s hand. Basking in his light. She doesn’t care what kind of sacrifice it requires. Spending the rest of her money on ISB sessions. Moving to the compound in Oregon. Breaking free of her mother entirely. Trusting Ben completely. Whittling herself down to the smallest girl she can be. She’s heard whispers about other sacrifices, too–major sacrifices, ones that prove total loyalty and honor.

 

Danny will do all of that. She will do anything to continue to feel the way she feels. She will be the best student. She will score straight As. She’ll blow everyone out of the water. Or she’ll die trying.

But now something has changed, something she’s reluctant to talk to even Rebecca about. Luckily for Danny, her former best friend understands all about keeping secrets. Rebecca also understands instinctively that Danny needs help. Perhaps even more importantly, she feels that she owes Danny for the multitude of small betrayals that led to the last lasting break in their relationship.

Yet even as the women are trying to find their way back to each other, malevolent forces are closing in on them. Danny’s escape from the Oregon compound did not go unnoticed. Will Danny and Rebecca’s friendship, once fractured, be able to see them through what could be the most dangerous experience of their lives?

Gaslight is a powerful examination of the ways in which shame can keep people trapped, even as predators exploit the vulnerable while pretending to care deeply about their wellbeing. Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and Sara Shepard do an excellent job of exposing the inner workings of cults, riffing off of the details of several real-life sects that have made headlines in recent years. Most moving, though, are their dissections of female friendships, especially the ones made in adolescence that have a hard streak of competition running through them. Danny and Rebecca have a complicated history that is made all the more realistic and sympathetic for being imperfect, as they struggle to overcome years of conditioning in their fight to save both each other and themselves.