PositiveThe AV/AUX ClubWright’s admiration for Hubbard’s ingenuity, insight, and force of personality is evident throughout Going Clear, even as he systematically debunks seemingly every aspect of Hubbard’s personal mythology, from his war record to his academic qualifications ... In Wright’s telling, Miscavige led Scientology into a new golden age of abuse, abduction, and intimidation, as both rank-and-file membership and upper-church management were subject to Miscavige’s whims; those who displeased him wound up in brutal work camps as part of the sect’s Rehabilitation Project Force. His cruelty and immaturity are so over-the-top that they border on comic, littering Going Clear with pitch-black comedy moments that are too depressing to be funny ... Sometimes Wright’s prosecutorial zeal gets the best of him. He continues to obsess about the lush, decadent details of Cruise and Miscavige’s personal fortunes long after establishing the financial gulf between church bigwigs and non-celebrity members. Wright lingers on brand names and luxury items so obsessively that at times, he threatens to turn into Bret Easton Ellis, lovingly cataloguing the brands of the Reagan era in American Psycho. His case against Scientology is strong enough that he doesn’t have to keep piling on: The facts speak for themselves ... In accessible, straightforward prose that does a fine job of rendering Scientology’s sometimes convoluted core concepts understandable, Wright captures its horrors and abuses, but also the seductive glamour ... In spite of its occasional excesses and redundancies, Going Clear is simultaneously a fearless, compelling, exhaustive work of muckraking journalism and a masterpiece of storytelling. It’s a ripping yarn about ego, money, abuse, faith, and the corrupting nature of power when wielded by the wrong people. It’s as lurid, pulpy, and preposterous-seeming as anything Hubbard or Haggis ever wrote, but it’s much better, because it has the benefit of being true.
