Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1986 Page 80
Looking at the characters in ―groups,‖ we find that the ―hustlers‖ have come from
backgrounds where a strong, positive father-figure was not available, and where the long-
suffering mothers tend to die rather young. (The absence of a strong father-child
relationship is common among cult members, but we do not have good comparative data
about the childhoods of cult leaders that can ten us whether this is equally true of them.)
The ―hustlers‖ themselves are good-looking and manipulative --Sadiq in particular is
described as charismatic --and they have substantial (and multi-faceted) sexual appetites.
That they regard women as inferior is underscored several times, both verbally and
behaviorally. At one point, for example, Simon thinks to himself --―All women saw
themselves as domestic servants basically, (and] could be browbeat or charmed into doing
...just about anything,‖ and ―All women were whores anyway, and in taking so many to bed
so easily, he simply revealed their own nature to them‖ (pp. 182-183).
The God Hustlers‟ ―congregants‖ range from the very poor to the very wealthy, but they
have loneliness and ―searching‖ in common. There is a respectable middle-aged widow, who
is black a young woman, deserted by her man during pregnancy, whose baby has died of
lead-poisoning Alvin Fearing, son of a well-to-do and overbearing father and very weak
mother, a victim of abuse and a homosexual the wealthy Valerie Solon, whose long
marriage is decaying to emptiness with the departure of her youngest child and many
minor characters. Most of these followers escape the cult after becoming totally disillusioned
and/or physically injured. Valerie allegedly commits suicide (―allegedly,‖ because Leroy
Banks thinks she was murdered) after revealing to an investigative reporter the horrors she
has witnessed. What horrors? Beatings, various sexual acts performed in front of other
people under duress, electric shocks to control children. Valerie also repeats a rumor
(related earlier in the novel as the events actually happened) that ―Simon made a child eat
his own vomit because he threw up on his plate when he didn‘t want to eat something.‖ In
an example of Ahmed‘s brutality, he is reported to have beaten Tiffany Shane so badly that
three of her ribs were broken and her face was cut and bruised.
Just to reinforce what attracts people to cults, the investigative reporter --Catherine Meyer
--lists what cults appear to offer their recruits and members: immediate acceptance
directions on how to live (her marginal notes next to this item are: ―People have too many
options these days and too few criteria for making choices. Lots of people lack focus‖)
certainty and ―family/community/closeness.‖ Catherine herself is a somewhat religiously
naive Jew who becomes involved with Leroy Banks, a southern black intellectual. Although
she is the heroine of the book, in a sense, she, too, comes off as being used by a man --
Banks. (―He did not live with Catherine because he loved her. .She had to have been useful
to him in the work that he was trying to do, or he would not have ended up living with
her.‖)
Banks himself could have become a ―god hustler, as is shown in his early meetings with
Simon Stone, who was then a VISTA volunteer.‖ He had the glibness and self-confidence
and idealism that attracted other people. Banks‘ older sister, Carla, was one of the
―vulnerable,‖ but instead of becoming seriously enmeshed and hurt in a cult, she earned a
Ph.D. and became a marriage and family counselor. Like many of her peers, she is seeking
answers to her existential questions and guidance for her life. Carla is one of those who
follow a female guru to India in search of ―truths,‖ but returns to a black psychologist,
Coleman Robinson, who is writing a book on cults. She discovered in India ―that in order to
do your best work, you‘ve got to have a loss of ego ...But in order to lose your ego, it has
to be strong first, and that means giving up some of your limitations and defenses.‖ The
problem for many young people attracted to authoritarian charismatic leaders is that they
don‘t have egos strong enough to cope with disappointments and lack of certainty.
Webb does several things very well. She captures the southern dialect and black English
effectively. She delineates the development of the ―hustlers‖ from their childhood on, and
Looking at the characters in ―groups,‖ we find that the ―hustlers‖ have come from
backgrounds where a strong, positive father-figure was not available, and where the long-
suffering mothers tend to die rather young. (The absence of a strong father-child
relationship is common among cult members, but we do not have good comparative data
about the childhoods of cult leaders that can ten us whether this is equally true of them.)
The ―hustlers‖ themselves are good-looking and manipulative --Sadiq in particular is
described as charismatic --and they have substantial (and multi-faceted) sexual appetites.
That they regard women as inferior is underscored several times, both verbally and
behaviorally. At one point, for example, Simon thinks to himself --―All women saw
themselves as domestic servants basically, (and] could be browbeat or charmed into doing
...just about anything,‖ and ―All women were whores anyway, and in taking so many to bed
so easily, he simply revealed their own nature to them‖ (pp. 182-183).
The God Hustlers‟ ―congregants‖ range from the very poor to the very wealthy, but they
have loneliness and ―searching‖ in common. There is a respectable middle-aged widow, who
is black a young woman, deserted by her man during pregnancy, whose baby has died of
lead-poisoning Alvin Fearing, son of a well-to-do and overbearing father and very weak
mother, a victim of abuse and a homosexual the wealthy Valerie Solon, whose long
marriage is decaying to emptiness with the departure of her youngest child and many
minor characters. Most of these followers escape the cult after becoming totally disillusioned
and/or physically injured. Valerie allegedly commits suicide (―allegedly,‖ because Leroy
Banks thinks she was murdered) after revealing to an investigative reporter the horrors she
has witnessed. What horrors? Beatings, various sexual acts performed in front of other
people under duress, electric shocks to control children. Valerie also repeats a rumor
(related earlier in the novel as the events actually happened) that ―Simon made a child eat
his own vomit because he threw up on his plate when he didn‘t want to eat something.‖ In
an example of Ahmed‘s brutality, he is reported to have beaten Tiffany Shane so badly that
three of her ribs were broken and her face was cut and bruised.
Just to reinforce what attracts people to cults, the investigative reporter --Catherine Meyer
--lists what cults appear to offer their recruits and members: immediate acceptance
directions on how to live (her marginal notes next to this item are: ―People have too many
options these days and too few criteria for making choices. Lots of people lack focus‖)
certainty and ―family/community/closeness.‖ Catherine herself is a somewhat religiously
naive Jew who becomes involved with Leroy Banks, a southern black intellectual. Although
she is the heroine of the book, in a sense, she, too, comes off as being used by a man --
Banks. (―He did not live with Catherine because he loved her. .She had to have been useful
to him in the work that he was trying to do, or he would not have ended up living with
her.‖)
Banks himself could have become a ―god hustler, as is shown in his early meetings with
Simon Stone, who was then a VISTA volunteer.‖ He had the glibness and self-confidence
and idealism that attracted other people. Banks‘ older sister, Carla, was one of the
―vulnerable,‖ but instead of becoming seriously enmeshed and hurt in a cult, she earned a
Ph.D. and became a marriage and family counselor. Like many of her peers, she is seeking
answers to her existential questions and guidance for her life. Carla is one of those who
follow a female guru to India in search of ―truths,‖ but returns to a black psychologist,
Coleman Robinson, who is writing a book on cults. She discovered in India ―that in order to
do your best work, you‘ve got to have a loss of ego ...But in order to lose your ego, it has
to be strong first, and that means giving up some of your limitations and defenses.‖ The
problem for many young people attracted to authoritarian charismatic leaders is that they
don‘t have egos strong enough to cope with disappointments and lack of certainty.
Webb does several things very well. She captures the southern dialect and black English
effectively. She delineates the development of the ―hustlers‖ from their childhood on, and
