The Troop (book)

The novel follows a troop of boy scouts, Kent, Ephraim, Max, Newt, and Shelley, as they attend a yearly camping trip with their Scoutmaster Riggs on a remote island in Canada. On the surface the group gets along with one another relatively well, but below the surface each scout member has their own issues and problems that become magnified after a strange intruder comes upon their campsite. They immediately notice that he is very thin and in immediate need of medical assistance. As their Scoutmaster works as a physician when not leading the troop, Riggs decides that he must provide care. The stranger dies before they can really do anything and Riggs performs an autopsy, during which point he finds that the man was riddled with tapeworms that infested his entire body and are unlike any known strain. Beginning with Riggs, members of the troop either become infested with the tapeworms or fall victim to Shelley, who has been manipulating the remaining survivors into turning on one another. Prior to the trip Shelley had exhibited signs that he was a sociopath and serial killer in the making, which he had hidden from the people around him until the arrival of the stranger, as Shelley had decided that this was his chance to cause the death of a human being. Ultimately only two boys, Newt and Max, make it off the island in a motorboat but not without hardships, as Max had to retrieve necessary engine parts from a now dead Shelley in a cave infested with tapeworms. Before the two can make it to shore, the military intercepts their boat and shoots Newt, who was in the final stages of infestation. Newt had stated that he was "very, very... hungry", mentioning one of the military's trigger words, something that the military was extensively questioned over later.[1]

Max is placed in solitary isolation but shows no signs of infestation. He is released and is obsessively followed by the media, who had become aware of not only the infestation but also the government involvement, as the tapeworms were originally a government military experiment created under the guise of being a weight loss solution. The strain was created to be a hardy breed that would evolve to its surroundings, allowing the military to conquer a territory without having to physically fight the land's people. The intruder was deliberately released and sent to the island in order to see the effects of the project, as the island was remote enough to provide some form of control. The island is bombed until presumably no trace of the tapeworms remain.

Some time later Max travels to the island as a form of closure, as he has become a social pariah due to people suspecting him of still being infested. Once at the island Max experiences a strong wave of emotions and feelings, one of which is hunger. The book closes with an open ending, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether the feeling of hunger is a metaphorical representation of Max's mental and emotional state or is a sign that Max has been infested by an evolved strain of the tapeworms.

The Troop was released in hardback through Galley Books in the United States on February 25, 2014, alongside an audiobook adaptation narrated by Corey Brill.[2] A mass-market paperback edition by Pocket Books was released in July of that year and Gallery Books issued a larger paperback in 2016.[3][4]

It has since been released in French, Hungarian, and Chinese.[5]

In August 2019 Deadline reported that film rights to The Troop were optioned by James Wan’s Atomic Monster Productions. E.L. Katz has been named as director, while Wan and Michael Clear will serve as producers. Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald have been picked as the film's screenwriters.[6]

The Troop has received positive reviews from outlets such as the Quill and Quire and National Post, the latter of which included a satirical review from Davidson praising the book.[7][8] The book has been favorably compared to Stephen King's Carrie for its use of "extratextual materials, including newspaper articles, interviews and the like, to supplement the narrative", which Davidson has cited as an inspiration.[7][9]

Tor.com's Niall Alexander also compared the work to Carrie and criticized the characters as "broadly characterised" and stating that "This whisper is what The Troop tries and I’m afraid fails to trade in. Instead, Cutter must make do with revulsion, but it’s no substitute, ultimately. A twisted coming of age tale, more Koryta than King, which I quite liked despite its disappointing dependence on disgust."[10] Publisher's Weekly had similar criticisms, writing "Competent prose makes up in part for stock characters—the nerd, the popular kid, the quiet psychotic. Cutter’s appeal to modern-day disquiet over the ethical lapses of the military-industrial complex will strike many as pro forma rather than based in any authentic outrage over abuses real or imagined."[11]

• Official author website