A great NYC book

Alexander Stille’s The Sullivanians is a compulsive read. For several years, I intersected (peripherally) with the Sullivanians, always wondering but never quite knowing who they were and what they were about. Their base of operations extended from Columbia University down to the Lower East Side, with primary activities on the Upper West Side. They began as what might be called a noble experiment, a necessary, pioneering challenge to 1950s socio-sexual norms; they became, inarguably, a cult that was undone “by the thing [they] had set out to destroy: the family.” I highlighted many passages; here are a few that give a sense of the tensions around which Stille structures the book:
 

• “The idea of a radical psychoanalytic group with left-wing ideas was something that would have been very appealing at that time. Combining psychoanalysis with radical left-wing principles was a heady idea that seemed very exciting and very innovative.” (204)
• Many members had experienced various forms of trauma: some had been sexually abused, forced to do things they didn’t want to do, been screamed at and made to feel worthless by their therapists, done things they regretted, and experienced or witnessed acts of extreme cruelty and failed to act. (200)
• “The future belongs to the people who are ready to leave home, both physically and psychologically.” (90)
• Now she was not only working for her therapist but sleeping with her therapist’s husband, who happened also to be her husband’s therapist as well as her own employer. (156)
• “If there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that 99.9 percent of people attribute other people’s flaws to bad character and their own to circumstance.” (238)

 
There is some redemption; there’s more heartbreak. The impact lingers.