Bennington. Autumn, 1982. Donna, Jonathan and Bret arrive on the campus of the school nicknamed “The Little Red Whorehouse on the Hill.” One of them comes with a steamer trunk. One of them comes with a Kangol cap. One of them comes with a “suitcase full of drugs.”

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.

A crucial new piece of information comes to light.

Traci Lords as the key to pop culture in the late 20th and early 21st century. 

The mystery is (maybe) solved. And we hear directly—and at length—from 1985 Traci, in a never-before-aired interview. 

We return to the Valley, and it looks a whole lot different this time around.

Meet Troy Matherly, the heart of this story. The heart of Nora's story, and of Traci's story.

We leave the Valley and Traci Lords behind; go back to Redondo Beach and to Traci Lords before she was Traci Lords, when she was Nora Kuzma.

The adult industry is screwed. The question is: Who's doing the screwing?