Secrets and Murder in Suburbia: 5 Inspirations for Samantha Leach’s ‘The Elissas’
When I first set out to write The Elissas it was with the aim of unpacking the pain of having lost my childhood best friend, Elissa, at just 18 years old. Elissa had been part of the Troubled Teen Industry—a network of unregulated programs meant to reform wealthy, wayward youth—where she met two other girls uncannily named Alyssa and Alissa. The three shared matching Save Our Souls tattoos, a penchant for partying, and later, a shared tragic fate, as none lived past 26 years old.
As my story grew in scope, coming to include Alyssa and Alissa’s stories, I realized I also needed to delve deeper into the history of the Troubled Teen Industry, the legacy of addiction in suburbia, as well as re-examine the cultural moment that the three of us had grown up in and been molded by: the early aughts. Below you’ll find the five works—a book, movie, television show, podcast, and song—that inspired this research most.
Help At Any Cost
In 2006, journalist Maia Szalavitz published her exhaustive exploration of the Troubled Teen Industry. The book examines the cult of Synanon (from which the concept for this industry sprung), Straight, Incorporated (which was once one of the most influential troubled teen programs), and the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (the organization that previously governed the industry). Along the way she tells the heartbreaking yet illuminating stories of former participants, like Aaron Bacon, a 16-year-old who died of peritonitis while in the care of a wilderness program. The book is essential reading for anyone wanting to go deeper into the origins of this insidious industry.
Beautiful Boy
I came to Beautiful Boy — both the 2018 film starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet as well as the New York Times Magazine article that inspired it, “My Addicted Son” — with the intent of better understanding what it meant to be the parent of an addict. And what I came away from both works realizing is that to be the parent of an addict is to be desperate. Desperate to help your child in any way possible, by any means possible.
The Simple Life
In the past few years Paris Hilton has come forward as a survivor of therapeutic boarding and a crusader for Troubled Teen Industry reform. And while her work in this realm was hugely influential on The Elissas, I also had to go back and revisit who Paris Hilton once was—the celebutante that Elissa and I looked up to as our dream model of rebellion — in order to tap into my adolescent psyche. Watching her and Nicole Richie’s shenanigans on the show did just that.
The C-Word
Each episode of Lena Dunham and Alissa Bennett’s The C-Word offers a deep dive into the life of a woman dismissed by society for being too wild, too “crazy,” or just too much. While the episodes center on women throughout many generations—ranging from Barbara Hutton to Winona Ryder—it was their two-part series on Lindsay Lohan that really helped drop me back into the culture of the early aughts.
“L.G. FUAD” by Motion City Soundtrack
Though Elissa and I had long shared a love for Top 40 hits, by middle school we’d gotten into “emo music.” Bands like Taking Back Sunday, Death Cab For Cutie, and Motion City Soundtrack. We loved all of the latter’s songs, but there was something about “L.G. FUAD” in particular that felt like the answer to our angsty, disaffected prayers. So I listened to this song repeatedly throughout the book process, trying to access that headspace
Discover the Book
Bustle editor Samantha Leach and her childhood best friend, Elissa, met as infants in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island, where they attended nursery, elementary school, and temple together. As seventh graders, they would steal drinks from bar mitzvahs and have boys over in Samantha’s basement—innocent, early acts of rebellion. But after one of their shared acts, Samantha was given a disciplinary warning by their private school while Elissa was dismissed altogether, and later sent away. Samantha did not know then, but Elissa had just become one of the fifty-thousand-plus kids per year who enter the Troubled Teen Industry: a network of unregulated programs meant to reform wealthy, wayward youth.
Less than a year after graduation from Ponca Pines Academy, Elissa died at eighteen years old. In Samantha’s grief, she fixated on Elissa’s last years at the therapeutic boarding school, eager to understand why their paths diverged. As she spoke to mutual friends and scoured social media pages, Samantha learned of Alyssa and Alissa, Elissa’s closest friends at the school who shared both her name and penchant for partying, where drugs and alcohol became their norm. The matching Save Our Souls tattoo all three girls also had further fueled Samantha’s fixation, as she watched their lives play out online. Four years after Elissa’s death, Alyssa died, then Alissa at twenty-six.
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