The man who abused me was such a talented storyteller that he could convince you that something that wasn't real was real. I had gone through an experience that seems explicitly designed around telling a new story for me about who I was and what my memories even were. The process of writing the book did a few things for me. It takes a lot of courage to make yourself vulnerable again, to relive that experience writing about it. Salon spoke to Barban Levin recently via Zoom about writing his way to a new narrative, when he knew he had to walk away, why nobody sets out to join a cult - and what really happened at Slonim Woods 9, the name of a dormitory on Sarah Lawrence's campus from which Barban Levin took his memoir title.Īs always, our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. It's also one of hard-won survival, and creating a life after the unimaginable. It's an intense tale of coercion, humiliation, gaslighting and physical torment. It was instead an object lesson in the life cycle of an harmful relationship, and how vulnerable anyone can become.The story led to a development deal from Amazon, and an indictment for sex trafficking and extortion for the man at the center of it, Larry Ray.Īnd now, one of the former members of the group, Daniel Barban Levin, has written his account of what went on during those tumultuous, painful years of his young adulthood. The story - of a charismatic, just-released-from-prison parent who reportedly manipulated, blackmailed, abused and ultimately divided a group of friends - seemed like a tabloid-ready tale. Walsh published "The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence" in New York magazine in 2019, an immediate flurry of attention followed. What do you think of when you see the word "cult"? A bunch of Manson girls wending their way toward Cielo drive? A Peoples Temple flock forced into suicide in Jonestown? What you probably don't think of is a bunch of kids from a prestigious liberal arts college being manipulated by the dad of a fellow student.
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