140: Surviving Larry (w/Daniel Levin & Zach Heinzerling)

Today, Hulu releases a 3-episode doc series called “Stolen Youth,” directed by Zach Heinzerling.

The pole star for this low-dopamine, low-cortisol, non-true-crime, survivor-centred documentary is Daniel Levin’s painful and radiant memoir, Slonim Woods 9. In 2010, Levin was drawn into an extended-family domestic abuse group led by Larry Ray, the father of one of his friends at Sarah Lawrence College. It took him years to leave, years to begin to recover, and years to become the de facto subject coordinator for this film.

Matthew talks with Zach and Daniel about what it takes to really listen to survivors of group abuse, and how the arts of memoir and documentary can be doorways to reconnection and integration.

In an interview debrief, Julian and Matthew discuss why reviewing Stolen Youth is such a relief in the current Wild West cultsploitation landscape.

Well-told stories in this zone—and we need more of them—educate, de-sensationalize, and de-stigmatize. They humanize every step of the journey: from recruitment, to enmeshment, to complicity, to recovery, to creativity.

Show Notes

Slonim Woods 9 by Daniel Barban Levin

Rough Cut: What do filmmakers owe their subjects? w/Souki Medhaoui

Larry Ray and the Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence

How Did Larry Ray Run a Cult at Sarah Lawrence?