When the World Didn't End

Wednesday, October 18 at 6:00 PM: When the World Didn’t End: A Memoir. Author talk with Guinevere Turner. Virtual.

Turner’s memoir vividly recalls her unconventional upbringing in the Lyman Family. She was not raised by her mother, Bess, but by other group members who home-schooled her and the other community children. The isolated, hierarchical Lyman commune was led by charismatic “Lord” Mel Lyman, who preached about the dangers of everyone outside their community. He, alongside “Queen” Jessie Benton, reigned over a network of compounds in Kansas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Martha’s Vineyard. With the knowledge of an impending apocalypse in January 1975, the Lyman followers were instructed that the global population of “World People” would be extinguished and only their group would ascend in a spaceship to live on Venus. Slowly, Turner comes to understand the depth of the Family’s deception. Her journey away from the cult and toward a successful screenwriting career is stirring and inspiring.

Guinevere Turner is an acclaimed screenwriter and director. She has written such films as American Psycho, The Notorious Bettie Page, and most recently, Charlie Says. She also wrote and starred in the 1994 film Go Fish and was a writer and actor on Showtime’s The L Word. An essay she wrote for The New Yorker is the inspiration for her memoir, When the World Didn't End. She lives in Los Angeles and New York.

Virtual. Email tthorpe@clamsnet.org for the Zoom invite. Sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Library Association.