Season 2

Welcome to "Once Upon A Time... at Bennington College"

September 28, 2021 - 03:32
It’s the groves of academe: Bennington College, the wildest and wickedest school in America. In the last great decade: the 1980s....

S2 | Ep 1: Dis-Orientation

September 29, 2021 - 41:12
Bennington. Autumn, 1982. Donna, Jonathan and Bret arrive on the campus of the school nicknamed “The Little Red Whorehouse on the Hill.”...

S2 | Ep 2: Bret Ellis, Valley Boy

September 29, 2021 - 49:14
Los Angeles, 1980-1981. “There was just this huge sense that the world was gay, gay, gay.” The origin story of Bret Easton Ellis (and...

S2 | Ep 3: An Alley Along Melrose

September 29, 2021 - 45:09
Los Angeles, 1981-1982. “This rumor went around in 1981, 1982, that kids just were brought to see the body of another kid.” The origin...

S2 | Ep 4: Disappear There

September 29, 2021 - 47:52
Bennington. Autumn, 1982. Bret and Donna go on a date.

S2 | Ep 5: Bennington Revisited

October 6, 2021 - 55:52
Bennington. Autumn, 1982. Donna falls under the thrall of a magus-like professor, and the very small, very elite, very male band of...

S2 | Ep 6: Mississippi Chippy

October 13, 2021 - 57:22
Winter, 1982-1983. Over Non-Resident term, Donna gets closer to Jonathan, and becomes Paul McGloin's "Burning Boy."

S2 | Ep 7: Donna Lou

October 20, 2021 - 57:56
Mississippi, 1963-1982. Donna’s origin story. And Lord Jim... revealed?

S2 | Ep 8: Murder By Numbers

October 27, 2021 - 50:12
Bennington. Spring, 1983-Spring, 1985. Bret lives The Rules of Attraction, then sells Less Than Zero. Bret befriends David Lipsky, then...

S2 | Ep 9: Entering Into the Sublime

November 3, 2021 - 55:43
Bennington. Spring, 1983. Donna Tartt becomes “Donna Tartt.” Jonathan Lethem becomes an angry young man.

S2 | Ep 10: An Impossible Shade of Green

November 10, 2021 - 51:32
Bennington. Autumn, 1983-Spring, 1986. Donna begins The Secret History. Donna throws tea parties and frequents martini hours. Donna...

S2 | Ep 11: Disturbing Michiko Kakutani

November 17, 2021 - 55:07
Bennington and New York City. Autumn, 1985-spring, 1986. Less Than Zero is published and Bret becomes a cultural phenomenon. Bret also...

S2 | Ep 12: Sensational Sensationalism

November 24, 2021 - 1:01:16
New York City. Spring of 1987 to Spring of 1991. Patrick Bateman is born.

S2 | Ep 13: The Farmer’s Granddaughter

December 1, 2021 - 59:12
Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York, New York. Spring of 1986 to Fall of 1994. The Secret History is published. Plus, “The Purge”...

S2 | Ep 14: It Was Like I Went Where I Failed To Go

December 8, 2021 - 59:18
1994 to the present day. Jonathan Lethem comes from behind. And just whose world are we living in anyway—Bret’s, Donna’s or Jonathan’s?

SERIES SUMMARY

It’s the groves of academe: Bennington College, the wildest and wickedest school in America. In the last great decade: the 1980s. Bennington class of ’86, class of Bret Easton Ellis, future writer of American Psycho and co-leader of the literary Brat Pack; Jonathan Lethem, future writer of Motherless Brooklyn and MacArthur Fellow; and Donna Tartt, future writer of The Secret History and Pulitzer Prize winner. All three are, at various times, infatuated and disappointed with one another, their friendships stimulated and fueled by rivalry as much as affection. And all three will mythologize Bennington in their fiction—fiction that, as we’ll discover, isn’t always fiction, is often fact—and thereby become myths themselves. From the Peabody-nominated C13Originals studios and Vanity Fair's Lili Anolik, comes the latest installment in the “Once Upon a Time…” franchise, Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College. This is a tale of money, murder, madness, and—of course—genius. This is, too, a multi-dimensional expose: the secret history of The Secret History revealed; the secret history of three of the greatest writers of Generation X revealed; and the secret history of Generation X itself revealed. This follows Season One of the franchise, Once Upon a Time...in the Valley, a real-life psychological thriller about underage adult star Traci Lords.

LILI ANOLIK

LILI ANOLIK - HOST

Lili Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Her work has also appeared in Harper’s, Esquire and The Paris Review, among other publications. Her latest book, the Los Angeles Times bestseller, Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A., was published by Scribner in January 2019.

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About C13Originals

C13Originals

C13Originals is the division of Cadence13 focused on original storytelling and developing a slate of IP through a new premium level in-house production studio, and creators of top podcast series Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia and the white-collar crime docuseries Gangster Capitalism.

Credits

Executive Producers - Lili Anolik and Chris Corcoran

Creator and Writer - Lili Anolik

Director - Zak Levitt

Editor - Perry Crowell

Script editor - Bruce Handy

Production support - Ian Mandt

Mix and Mastered - Bill Schultz

Production Coordination - Terence Malangone

Studio Coordination - Sean Cherry

Graphic Design and Marketing - Brian Swarth, Moira Curran, Josefina Francis, Curt Courtenay, Melissa Wester

About C13Originals

C13Originals

C13Originals is the division of Cadence13 focused on original storytelling and developing a slate of IP through a new premium level in-house production studio, and creators of top podcast series Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia and the white-collar crime docuseries Gangster Capitalism.

Credits

Executive Producers - Lili Anolik and Chris Corcoran

Creator and Writer - Lili Anolik

Director - Zak Levitt

Editor - Perry Crowell

Script editor - Bruce Handy

Production support - Ian Mandt

Mix and Mastered - Bill Schultz

Production Coordination - Terence Malangone

Studio Coordination - Sean Cherry

Graphic Design and Marketing - Brian Swarth, Moira Curran, Josefina Francis, Curt Courtenay, Melissa Wester