Little One

Catharine West is a 28-year-old freelance writer in New York City who has spent a decade constructing a new identity to conceal the truth of her childhood. On the 10th anniversary of her departure from a remote farm compound in central Florida, she marks the occasion with a ritualistic run and a custom cake. The day is disrupted by an email from Reese Campbell, an investigative journalist researching what he calls a "little-known, now-defunct cult" and asking about her connection to it. Catharine throws the cake away and channels a mantra her father taught her: Hunger is something you can hold.

The novel alternates between Catharine's present-day life and flashbacks to her upbringing. Catharine grows up on a former camp for troubled children that her father purchased at auction and transformed into a self-sufficient farming community. In the early years, the farm is idyllic. The community includes Ben and Bertie Abramson, a couple who serve as surrogate grandparents to Catharine, and Holly, a young woman who arrives with her daughter Linna. Catharine and Linna, both around four when they meet, become inseparable. Catharine's father legally adopts Linna after divorcing Catharine's mother, Lisa, a separation framed as a sacrifice for the community's good.

As Catharine enters her teens, the farm's population dwindles and her father's behavior grows more controlling. He introduces "moderation fasts" that eliminate foods from the diet for increasingly long periods, and his moods swing between warmth and cruelty. When Catharine impulsively questions the monotony of their food, her father publicly humiliates her by replacing family meal with bowls of cow manure and forcing her to clean them while rewarding everyone else with ice cream. He frames the punishment as a necessary lesson, and Catharine accepts this logic, convinced that her father's discipline is the only path to improvement.

In the present, Catharine maintains a carefully curated life. She has built her career behind a web of lies and keeps her closest friend, Stella, at a comfortable distance with only sanitized fragments of her past. The public library serves as her sanctuary, the place where she taught herself to navigate the world after arriving in the city alone at 18. She is also deeply devoted to a reclusive author named Marion Earl, whose fiction she believes contains hidden traces of Linna. The bubbly dot over the letter "i" in Earl's signature reminds Catharine of Linna's handwriting, and she has quietly convinced herself that Earl and Linna are the same person.

When Reese reveals he has a source who insists Catharine is the person they once knew, she agrees to meet him, reasoning that controlling the narrative requires understanding what he knows. She suspects the source is Linna and resolves to use Reese to reach her sister. Over several meetings, the two engage in a charged dynamic of mutual strategy. Reese reveals information that destabilizes Catharine's understanding of her own past: Her father was never a professor but merely a teaching assistant. Birth certificates show Ben and Bertie were only in their fifties, not the elderly grandparents Catharine believed them to be. Reese also suggests that Lisa may have been poisoned rather than dying from an untreated illness, a theory Catharine initially rejects.

The flashbacks trace the farm's deterioration. Linna develops a romance with Kent, the teenage son of another resident, and begins questioning the farm's rules. Catharine reacts with jealousy and fear, terrified of losing her sister. Lisa's health worsens with chronic headaches. Catharine's father introduces a personal scale and begins weighing residents as an accountability measure. Catharine becomes privately obsessed with the numbers, finding in them a sense of control she cannot find elsewhere.

Catharine convinces her father to let her get a driver's license by framing it as service to the farm. Lisa uses the driving lessons to subtly prepare Catharine for the possibility of leaving, telling her that life will change her mind about things whether she wants it to or not. Catharine responds with cruelty, accusing her mother of not trying hard enough. When Catharine discovers Lisa's body one evening, she also finds a hidden plastic bag sewn into the bedroom curtains containing cash, identity documents for both of them, a spare car key, and a car registration in Catharine's name. She realizes her mother had been preparing an escape for them both. That same night, she overhears Kent in the treehouse dismissing Catharine as merely an extension of her father.

In the present, Reese arranges for Catharine to meet his source. She arrives expecting Linna but instead meets Holly, Linna's mother, who Catharine was told died in a car accident when the girls were six. Holly reveals there was no accident: Catharine's father starved and manipulated her into signing custody papers, then abandoned her at a motel. Holly spent 15 years with addiction before getting sober and contacting Reese to find Linna. Through Holly's recorded interviews, Catharine learns that Lisa had confided in Holly about wanting to leave but staying because she knew Catharine's father would never let Catharine go. Holly also observes that Catharine's possessive attachment to Linna mirrored her father's controlling behavior.

In the flashbacks, the crisis accelerates after Lisa's funeral, where Catharine's father pressures her to report anyone harboring doubts. Catharine betrays Linna by telling him that Kent wants to leave, hoping to prevent Linna from going. Her father announces Kent's departure and introduces a 10-day water fast with mandatory public weigh-ins. Linna tells Catharine that Kent promised to leave a letter if he ever left, and no letter exists. Catharine gives Linna half the hidden money and urges her to leave. Linna tells Catharine she cannot hate herself into happiness, then departs that night with a note: "Thank you. I love you."

The next morning, Catharine learns the full scope of her father's violence. He intercepted Linna, confiscated the money, and claims she ultimately left. He reveals he has killed the remaining residents, including Kent, overnight. He drives Catharine to a remote swamp where he disposed of the bodies of Lisa, Ben, and Bertie, and proposes they start over together. When Catharine asks about Linna, his reaction differs from when he discussed the others: a flash of rage she interprets as a sign Linna may have escaped. He hands Catharine the car keys. Mid-sentence, telling her she is his flesh and blood, Catharine drives the key into his eye socket. He falls and dies. She climbs into the truck and drives north, eating a tomato from the crate beside her.

In the present, Catharine confesses the killing to Reese, framing it as self-defense. He envisions a docuseries, podcast, and media empire. Catharine negotiates a producer credit and agrees to participate. Holly posts a viral TikTok series about her experience that accelerates the story's public release.

An epilogue set five years later finds Catharine on a 100-acre former Girl Scout camp in Wyoming, converted into a luxury women's retreat. The Netflix docuseries she produced trended in the top 10 for six months, and a subsequent mistrial freed her legally. Stella arrives as the first guest of a 30-day program promising transformation through discipline, attending for free and eagerly offering to help. Catharine receives a polite email from Marion Earl declining an invitation to speak, writing warmly about protecting her quiet life. The novel closes as Catharine watches Stella settle in, reflecting that the work ahead will not be easy. It is, she tells herself, "a lifestyle change, something hard-fought. Earned." The ending carries an unsettling implication: Catharine has replicated the foundational dynamics of her father's community, complete with an isolated compound, paying residents, promises of self-improvement through discipline, and a charismatic leader at its center.