Jesse Lambert

 

The Group is a graphic novel memoir that tells the story of growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in New York City as part of a communist psychotherapy cult known as the Sullivanians. Part therapy clinic, part polyamorous commune, and part political theater company, the Sullivan Institute/4th Wall community was a radical experiment in communal living that combined the controversial therapy of the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis with a devotion to revolutionary communist ideals. From the vantage of middle age, Jesse Lambert, both the author and artist, reflects on his childhood experience, and the adult aftermath of an utopian dream gone wrong.

Jesse Lambert has been painting and drawing in a fine art context for over 20 years. He recently began writing and drawing nonfiction comics. Jesse’s short graphic memoir, That’s Not What We’re Called, explores community, belonging, and identity formed in a cult environment saturated with counterculture ideals and radical politics. It will be included in the anthology, American Cult, to be published by Paper Rocket Comics in 2020.