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Laddar... Slonim Woods 9: A Memoirav Daniel Barban Levin
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Poet Daniel Barban Levin shares an intense tale of belonging to a makeshift cult in this affecting memoir. As a young man, the author felt as though he was sinking as he struggled to find his way at elite Sarah Lawrence College. He fell in with a ragtag group of friends, oddly led by Larry, the formerly incarcerated father of one of them. Larry, who often made grandiose claims about his psychological acumen and importance to the U.S. military, promised that trusting him would give the friends the “clarity” they sought, but his methods involved mental, physical and sexual abuse. Finally, Levin found his way out of Larry’s and the group’s controlling clutches. This book is hard to read, but worthwhile. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
"A stunning firsthand account of the creation of a modern cult under conman Larry Ray and the horrifying costs paid by his young victims: his daughter's college roommates. In September 2010, at the beginning of the academic year at Sarah Lawrence College, a sophomore named Talia Ray asked her roommates if her father could stay with them for a while. No one objected. Her father, Larry Ray, was just released from prison, having spent three years behind bars after a conviction during a bitter custody dispute. Larry Ray arrived at the dorm, a communal house called Slonim Woods 9, and stayed for the whole year. Over the course of innumerable counseling sessions and "family meetings," the intense and forceful Ray convinced his daughter's friends that he alone could help them "achieve clarity." Eventually, Ray and the students moved into a small Manhattan apartment, beginning years of manipulation and abuse, as Ray tightened his control over his young charges through blackmail, extortion, and ritualized humiliation. Daniel Barban Levin was one of the original residents of Slonim Woods 9. Ray coached Daniel through a difficult break-up, slowly drawing him into his web. After two years of escalating psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, Daniel found the strength to escape from Ray's influence and take control of his own life. In April 2019, a New York magazine cover story, "The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence," exposed Ray's crimes to the world. In February 2020, he was finally indicted on charges of extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, and money laundering. Beginning the moment Daniel set foot on Sarah Lawrence's idyllic campus and spanning the two years he spent in the grip of a megalomaniac, this brave, lyrical, and redemptive memoir reveals how a group of friends were led from campus to a cult without the world even noticing"-- Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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I'm glad that Levin eventually got away from the group and was able to rebuild his life, but I do have reservations about the book. Part of that comes down to its structure—there are parts that meander and that aren't as revealing as the author I think believes them to be. The bigger issue though—and it makes me feel terrible to write this—is that I found myself questioning aspects of Levin's narrative. To be clear, I'm not at all doubting that the group Ray led was as abusive as Levin states.
However, I didn't entirely buy how Levin presented himself to the reader. A couple of scenes had a whiff of BS to them: particularly one scene where he goes to meet with a former professor, who gushes about how Levin's dissertation reminded her of D.H. Lawrence, how she hasn't been able to stop thinking about his work, and how an essay he'd written as a first-year student had been so brilliant that it had made her reconsider her decision to retire because of it. If that meeting ever happened, I am deeply suspicious that it played out in the way that Levin presents it here. ( )