Fiction. VICTIMS is a novel about the final days of a religious cult, The Overcomers, a small group of lost souls guided by the teachings of a charismatic leader, Martin Jones. Based on extensive research into the rhetoric of religious cults, VICTIMS is a novel of ideas. Twenty-three year-old author Travis Jeppesen uses an episodic narrative, an elegantly direct style and a quirky, sympathetic group of characters to ponder a question raised by Jones' teachings: If friendship and love are just systems to instill comfort in our lives, are all human interactions acts of manipulation? "VICTIMS may be the most exciting first novel I've read in a decade or more. This is a brilliant, haunting, and strangest of all, very funny novel"-Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk.