Slonim Woods 9 A memoir

Poet Levin debuts with a chilling account of the two years he spent living as part of a cult. Writing in eloquent prose, he describes how such a thing can happen, and why, as he puts it, "The alarms kept screaming, and we ignored them." Levin's freshman year at Sarah Lawrence College was like any other student's, until he met Larry Ray, his classmate Talia's father, in 2010. Ray lived with his daughter and her friends at their communal dorm, and, claiming to be a Defense Intelligence Agency operative, he ingratiated his way into the group first with relationship advice, and then guilt and intimidation. "You make your world what it is," he tells Levin, "closed, small, weak, empty, bleak, barren... they don't see it, but I see it." Gripped by fear, the friends were eventually subjected to sexual and physical violence, and explicit torture, all by Ray. After two years, Levin finally found the strength to leave, seek therapy, and, with the encouragement of a friend, begin to write his story. (Ray currently awaits trial on federal charges of, among other things, conspiracy, extortion, and sex trafficking.) It's tragic, but it's also a powerful portrayal of a young man's ability to emerge whole from an experience intended to break him. As dark as it is, there's real beauty in this story. Agent: Chris Clemans, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Sept.)

This unsettling memoir depicts college friends in thrall to one student's devious, domineering father. Levin vividly evokes the collegiate atmosphere of the early 2010s, focusing on the bizarre experiences he endured at Sarah Lawrence College. "When I lived there I was a member of what I can now call a cult," he writes. While living in group housing, several students' lives were hijacked by Larry Ray, one girl's father. Initially introduced as "an incredible human being" with national security credentials, he served time in prison due to a vengeful ex-wife's machinations and involvement in scandals surrounding one-time Rudy Giuliani associate Bernard Kerik. Without much scrutiny, Ray moved in with the students and insinuated himself into their lives. A manipulative charmer, he soon commanded instant obedience. He moved the group to an apartment in Manhattan, increasingly controlling their sexual identities and inner lives, as he noted: "My skill set has been breaking minds, creating loops it's impossible to get out of….But I also have the ability to unravel the knots people have made in themselves." The narrative bubbles with tension as readers wonder how Ray will further extend his control over the group members, who were still "pretending we had something private, though nothing, really, was private anymore." Even when Levin studied in England, he remained preoccupied with Ray. "Something in me," he writes, "clamored for that feeling: time vanishing, that warmth washing over me, being able to share my secret fears, being told--convinced, rather--that every-thing would be all right." Levin controls this unsavory tale by contrasting Ray's bombast and deceptions with his own struggles with depression and identity alongside intense depictions of settings ranging from the bucolic campus to the group's flashy Manhattan environs. He captures how intense adolescent friendships are vulnerable to manipulation. Sometimes the author's exactitude becomes tiresome, as he relies on re-created conversations, including Ray's menacing monologues. (Ray has since been indicted on federal charges pertaining to the events documented here and elsewhere). An unusual, affecting portrait of how post-adolescent power dynamics are susceptible to cultish abuse. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

1 The alarms kept screaming, and we ignored them. While we lined the path waiting for the all clear, Santos and I collected rocks, which we were piling to build a makeshift wall against the cliff outside our dorm. False alarms were frequent and familiar occurrences at Sarah Lawrence, and I'd grown accustomed to pretending a whole building hadn't just begun to squawk when I walked past one on the way to class. Our dorms were called Slonim Woods; they squatted at the bottom of a cliff on top of which was a copse of trees--the "woods" for which the dorms were named. In the brisk New York autumn air, herded into the canyon formed by the buildings and the cliff, Santos and I constructed our wall. All the residents of Slonim were wearing what looked like costumes of our normal selves, having been rushed out of a shower or roused from an afternoon nap. Santos and I were managing a prodigious stack of rocks, what had turned out to be a surprisingly sturdy monument to our boredom. We had no way of knowing how long it would take the firefighters, who were probably as frustrated as we were, to identify which oversensitive alarm had been set off by some toaster crumb just large enough to have become kindling. "It's unbelievable," Santos said, handing me a rock. I considered the cliff for best placement. "What's happened to them is insane. Talia looks like she's this scrawny girl or something, but she's the toughest person I've ever known. Growing up in the Bronx was nothing compared to some of the stories she's told me from the shelter." Santos and I had been friends ever since we'd been randomly assigned to live together in our first year. He'd been the best roommate you could ask for. He had tough, Dominican parents, which was why, I guessed, he cleaned our whole room practically every day. He didn't smoke, he didn't drink, he didn't even really listen to music. I did every single one of those things, and tried my best to introduce him to them. The rock I had just placed on the top of the wall wobbled, a little too big. "In my elementary school, we were building something like this at recess once, and two kids were carrying a heavy rock and it slipped," I told Santos. "One of them had to have the tip of his finger removed. Everyone always made fun of him after that. I can't remember why exactly. They said he smelled bad, I remember that. I think they said his finger was rotting or something, and that's why he smelled." The alarm continued to wail, muffled through our house's brick walls. "Do you know Talia's dad at all? I mean, have you met him? "No, not besides what she's told me. I know he was in the marines and everything, and he's done some intelligence work. When they've talked on the phone, Talia's put him on speaker with us. Me and Isabella." I looked up. In the woods on top of the cliff was a ropes course no one used. Mostly people would just sit up there and drink or smoke weed as they watched people stroll by on the path below. In the summer before the school year, our roommate Gabe flew out from California a week early by accident. He tried to secretly camp in this little strip of woods until classes started. He barely avoided getting kicked out of school for that. "Larry's really excited to see her again," Santos continued. "Everything that happened to them is so unjust. He's really, really smart and has battled through so much." "Right." "I think that's why Talia is the way she is. She blows my mind sometimes." "He gets here next week, right?" I asked. "He's staying with us?" The wind blew stiff down the path, dislodging a couple of the more precarious stones. They clattered among the bright yellow leaves at our feet. The air was brisk enough to wear jackets, the sun hot enough to sweat underneath them. "Yeah, I think he's going to stay for a little bit while he figures it out. They just haven't seen each other in so long." "That makes sense," I said. I thought it did. I wondered how high we could build the wall before it would fall. I wanted to build something that would be here long after we'd moved into new dorms, or even after we'd left the school. The alarm stopped. The strange silence it left behind was broken only by the click of Santos placing one last stone on top, and then the clamor of everyone rushing back into their buildings to continue the day. In the year after I graduated from Sarah Lawrence, when I was still going back to visit, I chanced a walk down that path, and I saw the wall we built there, slumped into the cliff behind it. It had been picked apart, perhaps by other students, but it was undeniable evidence. We had been there. It had all really happened. Excerpted from Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir by Daniel Barban Levin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.