The Family

Rating:
Summary: a must have for anyone fascinated with Manson
Review: I did not care for this book. It contained more speculation than fact, and it contained many discrepencies. There are better books written about the Tate-LaBianca murders. The only good thing that I can say is that it has some good pictures, but thanks to the internet, these can be found anywhere.

Rating:
Summary: A Sorry, Disappointing Read
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. Not that I expected much from Ed Sanders, who is generally a very pompous, self-important writer, but I had hoped for some serious info on Charlie Manson. What I got here was more of Sanders posturing about what a great writer he is. The sobering fact is that he isn't. Save your money and don't waste your time looking for any insight into Charlie Manson in this one. I'm not sure why it was ever published.

Rating:
Summary: A Sorry, Disappointing Read
Review: I'm not sure how anyone could ever dismiss Ed Sanders' "The Family," a detailed account of Charles Manson and the murders his Family committed during the summer of Woodstock, 1969. A superb companion book to Vincent Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter," Sanders' "The Family" is an alternative trip through the madness that defines one of the most infamous and horrifying crimes in American history.

While "Helter Skelter" is a factual, by-the-numbers recount, "The Family" is an attempt to get beneath the surface of these unimaginable crimes. Sanders, a pseudo hippie himself, well-versed in the howling of beatnik eras and the twang of Bob Dylan travels, had unparalleled leeway into the lives of Manson's followers before and during the criminal trials of 1970. He hung with the waifs at Spahn ranch before it burned to the ground. He camped with these very weird kids in Death Valley. And he caught wind of the numerous crazy rumors that floated around like so much LA smog while writing alongside the army of TV/print reporters covering the trial. His work is valid, and his opinions cut through much of the myth and legend of this case. It is also the first true book ever released on this case, having been published in 1971.

Sanders' flippant disregard for Manson's con, and the con of his worshipers, is refreshing. His style reminds me of the extraordinary ruminations of Evan S. Connell in "Son of the Morning Star" - a fantastic work dealing with another rather bloody historical event (Custer and Little Big Horn). Sanders refuses to accept the myth or the legend, and reveals the dirty, flea-bitten truth. His is an unconventional, creative approach, told from the eyes of a most intelligent mind.

But I still find much of Sanders' work to be extremely irresponsible. He recounts many of the urban myths surrounding this crime, including Manson's supposed alliances with Satanic cults, weird mysterious videotapes existing (yet disappearing) that reportedly show eventual victims with the Family, filmed sacrifices, CIA involvement, political connections stretching all the way to Washington D.C., and so on add nausea give me a break.

The Manson trial was a circus, and the conspiracy theories that spewed forth rivaled the theories surrounding yet another 1960s crime known as the JFK assassination. These were horrible times in American history, California Dreaming or not, and the simple fact of the matter is that Charles Manson and his family lived a counterculture lifestyle that was hip with middle class and upper-middle class culture during this era. They hung, ever-so-briefly, with the young in-crowd of Hollywood. But when the constant use of psychedelic drugs, combined with the unique isolation of Spahn ranch, began to take hold, Manson and his family entered a deadly alternative world having no touch with reality. The in-crowd slams the door in their face, the hope for rock and roll superstardom disappears, Manson becomes God, it's time to strike back at the rich and powerful piggies. It's such a sad and ugly story.

Sanders perhaps gets closer to the truth than any writer ever truly has with these crimes. It's all here, urban myths, unsolved crimes in the same neighborhood, animal bones, dirty laundry, uneducated white trash motivation spawned by years of institutionalization. It's Group Think at its worst formed by the hangover of one endless lost summer weekend.

"The Family" is my third book to read on Manson's pathetic crimes. I find it telling that after reading Sanders' influential work, I realize I now know all I ever really want to know.

Rating:
Summary: Manson Fact or Fiction
Review: More knowlege on Manson and the famley anywere given

Rating:
Summary: NOT A GOOD BOOK AT ALL!
Review: Sorry to say it, but this book is not very good at all. There is no depth or scope to it, not getting inside the people. The writing it tricky and flashy and does not balance out with the horrors these people perpetrated. I do not believe this author got to know his subject matter very well, and has offered only a glib, clever style to cover up for his lack of understanding his subject. I have read the book, MANSON, by John Gilmore, and find it to be the best one showing the Manson side of the story. HELTER SKELETR shows it from the police side. Either are better than this poorly done book.

Rating:
Summary: Never finished this book
Review: This publisher (Thunder's Mouth) who prides itself on being reasonably hip, has succeded in dishing up a reprint of a long-ago dismissed tome by the would-be or always-wanted-to-be-a-Beat-poet, Ed Sanders, who was always a better kazoo player with the Fugs than he ever was a writer. THE FAMILY is clearly what Sanders has dreamed up what it has to be like being part of Manson's Family. This book is trival (as it was in the original edition), flip and "cute," smug and dumb, as is much of what Sanders passes off as serious writing. When he sticks to facts he's borrowed from newspapers and other public domain material, he manages to give the reader a little legitimate information, albeit redundant, but all the rest of this is coy, fictitious junk. Pass on this book, unles you are bored to death with reality and want a little "I wish I could be cool" quasi-Beat chest thumping. There are far better books written on Manson and the Family, like HELTER SKELTER, and like MANSON: THE UNHOLY TRAIL. These books offer real perspective. Ed Sanders offers little more than Ed Sanders.