THE QUIET DAMAGE

The riveting story of QAnon's devastating impact on the American family, grappling with the seductive allure of disinformation, the trauma it causes, and how we might set ourselves free.

The QAnon conspiracy theories - which posit that a nefarious cabal of elites is secretly ruling our society, poisoning our bodies, and harming our children - have come to represent the peculiar mania driven by social media disinformation campaigns and its dire consequences on our politics. But what's often overlooked is the raw destructive power these theories have on the family. In an age in which partisanship has created deep divides within the home - between parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives - the extreme belief structure of QAnon widens those divides into seemingly insurmountable chasms, leaving people lost, confused, and broken. In THE QUIET DAMAGE, celebrated reporter Jesselyn Cook unfolds the heartbreaking stories of five representative families from couples young and old to rural white parents to urban Black siblings, to show how QAnon shattered bonds once believed unbreakable. Cook paints a portrait of American suffering, of the vulnerabilities that have left people susceptible to outrageous theories promising order and control in a world where both are increasingly in short supply. Charting the arc of each believer's path from their first intersection with QAnon to the depths of their cultish conviction in the theory's promise, to - in some fortunate cases - their rejection of conspiracy thinking and the mending of broken bonds, Cook offers a fascinating look into the psychology of how and why ordinary people come to believe the unbelievable. Jesselyn Cook is a senior reporter at HuffPost in Los Angeles, where she covers tech platforms, disinformation, online scams and internet culture. Cook has made her name by infiltrating some of the deepest, darkest corners of the web and pursuing the human angle to every story with curiosity and compassion.