Don't Tell Anyone: A Cult Memoir

In 1972, Alice Graves was 21, a lonely college dropout looking for a community, when she began dating a guy who was in Sullivanian interpersonal therapy. Graves didn't know that becoming a Sullivanian patient and moving into a communal apartment on the Upper West Side with other patients would place her in a cult, led by four psychologists jockeying for money and power. Members were expected to spend every free hour on “dates” with friends and multiple lovers so that they were never alone, drink copious amounts of alcohol to loosen their inhibitions, eschew marriage, and cut off all communication with their families of origin. With razor-sharp humor and raw candor, Graves describes how the Group initially offered the fun and friendship she craved, but gradually became more restrictive and bizarre in its demands; how she realized she was in a cult; and how she was ultimately able to break free after eleven years. Don’t Tell Anyone is a story about being young and searching for connection, learning to grow up after years of being told how to think and behave, and ultimately forging an identity of one’s own. “Alice Graves has given us the inside scoop, and through her own story, with strokes both humorous and touching, she makes understandable why people join cults and how they finally escape them.” –Beverly Donofrio, author of Riding in Cars with Boys and Astonished.