Mindf#ckers

Mindfuckers, Edited by David Felton
No month stated, 1972  Straight Arrow Books

Yes, friends, the title of the book is really “Mindfuckers.” I just changed it in the post title given the overly-sensitive AI that now polices Blogger. Which is fitting, because this book is essentially about thought control. Subtitled “A Source Book on the Rise of Acid Fascism in America” and comrpised of three very, very long articles that originally ran in Rolling Stone, Mindfuckers was published by the Rolling Stone imprint Straight Arrow, and likely it had a low print run, given how scarce the book is now. Luckily someone uploaded it to the Internet Archive. 

The book has been on my radar for quite some time, but I only now decided to read it because I’ve been on one of my infrequent Rolling Stone journalism kicks, and also because I’ve been on a Manson Family kick. Mindfuckers opens with the Manson piece, titled “Year Of The Fork, Night Of The Hunter,” credited to David Felton and David Dalton. Per Joe Hagan’s Sticky Fingers, Felton and Dalton argued over who should be the main writer for this piece, until editor Jann Wenner intervened and gave it to Felton – something Dalton was very upset over. Personally I find it confusing that the two authors have such similar names. 

Originally appearing in the June 25th, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone, “Year Of The Fork” took up the majority of the publication; I consulted my Rolling Stone: Cover To Cover CD-Rom and scanned through it to compare to this reprint in Mindfuckers. It appears the only thing missing is the photography that graced the original version, but for what it’s worth the copyright page of Mindfuckers states that “Portions of this book, in slightly different form, originally appeared in Rolling Stone.” I didn’t do a thorough A/B review, but I didn’t see any glaring changes, so the edits must have been very slight indeed. 

Running to a hundred pages, “Year Of The Fork, Night Of The Hunter” is certainly comprehensive, and as expected paints a very good picture of the era’s counterculture. In this regard it’s even more of a success than Ed Sanders’s contemporary The Family. But unlike Sanders, in which the author’s hatred for Manson and his “vampires” was palpable, Felton and Dalton convey an almost sympathetic tone. Indeed, again per Sticky Fingers Wenner’s original goal was to publish a story titled “Charles Manson Is Innocent,” but upon Felton and Dalton’s investigation that goal was scrapped. Likely Dalton had a lot to do with this, as per Hagan’s book he was living on Spahn Ranch when the story was written, and had first heard of Manson through Beach Boy Dennis Wilson (with whom Dalton also lived at one time, again per Hagan). 

Published before the trial began, the story caused enough waves that, per prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in Helter Skelter, it caused trouble for both the defense and the prosecution. Bugliosi also notes that the “copycat” scenario had its origin in this story; Felton and Dalton float the idea that the Tate-LaBianca murders were perpetrated so as to get Family member Bobby Beausoleil out of jail. But as Bugliosi notes, this half-assed defense wasn’t even brought up until after Manson and his three killers (Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten) were found guilty. (Charles “Tex” Watson, who carried out the brunt of the killing those nights, hadn’t gone to trial yet.) Bugliosi presents the inside scoop on how this article caused waves, noting in Helter Skelter that even the judge on the case was aware of it. 

Writing-wise, the Rolling Stone style, only a few years old in 1970, is already apparent. Predating the gonzo journalism of Hunter Thompson, Felton and Dalton don’t insert themselves as protagonists into the narrative, and for the most part the writing is on the level. It’s only in the counterculture vibe that the piece seems different than something published elsewhere – and this was one of Felton’s first assignments, coming in from the Los Angeles Times, where he’d won a Pulitzer. Perhaps the biggest coup of Felton and Dalton was an interview with Manson himself, which appears midway through the piece. 

The story encompasses most every aspect of the Manson story, starting off with a memorable open in which the authors take us on a virtual tour of Los Angeles, focusing on the areas of Manson’s impact as if we were hitting each one on a leisurely day’s drive. Then the authors meet with an anonymous attorney on the defense side who shows them gory photos of the murders and exposits on the particulars of the case – certainly stuff that would’ve construed a leak and could have gotten the entire trial thrown out as a mistrial. From there the story appropriates the vibe of one of those vintage Rolling Stone interviews in that the interview dialog goes on and on (and on)…with the caveat that it isn’t John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix or whoever doing the endless talking, but Charles Manson and his “super acid rap,” looking like a “cajun Christ” in his prison garb as Felton and Dalton interview him. 

This internminable interview once again outs Manson as a bullshit artist supreme. Like I wrote in my Helter Skelter review, it’s a wonder anyone took this guy seriously – certainly today no one would, given his constant self-comparisons to Christ, comparisons which would fall on deaf ears in this (mostly) post-Christian era. But Manson very much sees himself as a ‘60s Christ, about to be crucified (one almost gets the impression he regretted never going to the death chamber – then his martyrdom might have been ensured). In fact his attempts at being compared to Christ are ridiculous throughout his endless spiel, which is only occasionally broken up by befuddled responses from our two reporters. Charles Manson’s delight to finally be in the spotlight – to finally matter – is evident throughout this interminable sequence. 

After this we get lots of first-person recountings on Manson from followers new and old, which is how the piece closes; probably the highlight of “Year Of The Fork” is that it captures the Family immediately post-Manson, still living at Spahn Ranch and still eating food taken from garbage cans. We have Gypsy, for example, giving a metaphysical speech no doubt taken from Manson; the authors imply that Gypsy, slightly older than the other Family members, seems to secretly understand that Manson might never be coming back to them. I found this interesting from a modern perspective, as Gypsy (real name Catherine Share) has appeared in a few recent Manson documentaries, having cast off the cult shackles years and years ago. She was featured, for example, in the 2018 Manson: The Lost Tapes documentary on Fox, which featured a memorable moment of the former Gypsy putting on a pair of glasses to watch a recently-discovered film of Manson. Doubly ironic in that it was a visual display of how the Manson family was so long ago – the 70-something Catherine Share watching a film of the 20-something Gypsy – but also ironic given that Manson banned glasses in the Family. Something, by the way, he expounds upon in the interminable intervew in this Rolling Stone story. 

Overall this was certainly an interesting read, notable because it starts off seeming to be pro-Manson, but Felton and Dalton continue to pile up the evidence against him. The Helter Skelter motive isn’t mentioned, but we do get a lot of stuff from Manson and Gypsy on how the Beatles are sending out coded messages – even if The Beatles themselves don’t realize it! But in the capturing of the time and the place “Year Of The Fork, Night Of The Hunter” even bests Ed Sanders’s book. However, it’s no Helter Skelter. 

Next up we have another 90-page feature: Robin Green’s “The Great Banquet Table Of Life – We Deliver,” which first appeared as “Sgt. Bilko Meets The New Culture: The First Church Of Christ, Realtor,” in the December 9, 1971 Rolling Stone. Per Joe Hagan’s execrable Sticky Fingers, Robin Green was editor Jann Wenner’s “resident assassin,” the person he would send when he wanted a hit piece on someone. This particular story was briefly covered in that biography; Wenner’s mother, a rather self-obessed sort named Mimi, had fallen in with this pseudo-Tim Leary named Victor Baranco, and Jann Wenner was jealous of this (Hagan saddles Wenner with all sorts of hangups in the book, from latent homosexuality to Mommy Issues), so he sent Robin Green off to do a hit piece on Baranco. 

Regardless of the origin, the story really isn’t that compelling, and in fact has the vibe of a Kurt Vonnegut story or something. Well, maybe that’s stretching it…though Green does open the story with a quote from Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. But essentially this one’s about this guy named Baranco who one day realized he was perfect as-is, despite any hangups or issues or whatnot, and so decided to teach others to accept their perfection. Or somesuch. But the gist of this Rolling Stone piece is that he charges his followers exorbitant amounts of money for basic things, and also puts them up in houses that they have to pay rent on and fix up, and etc. Green’s writing is fine and she carries the story along, adding a humorous note with the dimwitted cult members – many of them affluent types whose pockets are easily picked – she interracts with while researching the story. 

Rounding out Mindfuckers is the 178-page opus “The Lyman Family’s Holy Siege Of America,” by David Felton and from the December 23, 1971 and January 6, 1972 issues of Rolling Stone. This story, a book in itself, documents a Manson-esque cult founded by a banjo-playing mystic; a cult that boasts it hasn’t killed anyone…yet. The opening is especially memorable: we’re in Boston, where a cult member is disguised as a security guard in the Lyman Family compound. The “guard” runs away in the dead of night – and Felton reveals that in reality it’s none other than Paul Williams, former Crawdaddy writer, whose Outlaw Blues I reviewed here a few years ago. 

Similar to Felton’s piece on Manson, we then flash back to the origins of this cult, which started in Boston in the early ‘60s with the apperance of a Mel Lyman on college campus, toting a banjo. The drug of choice was Morning Glory seeds, which per recent discovery could be soaked in water and ground up for an LSD-type experience. He was into the folk scene and could play Bach on his banjo and whatnot, and in the style of the time he began accumulating followers. I had a hard time understanding why, though. After 178 pages I still found nothing special nor memorable about Mel Lyman, at least in the way he was presented by David Felton – why so many followers would willingly boast that they “served” him was just a mystery. 

Regardless, Felton serves up this story as if it were a counterculture epic, painstakingly interviewing several of Lyman’s early followers – some of whom refused to have their real names shown in the story. Throughout there is the insinuation of Lyman’s evolving mean temperament, particularly given how his followers were so afraid of him. But boy it does go on, Felton doggedly pursuing leads to figure out the mystery of the “Lyman Family.” And speaking of which, despite getting started earlier, Lyman gradually became inspired by the Manson Family – particularly by the Rolling Stone story Felton himself wrote, which brings a full-circle vibe to the anthology. 

Felton takes us through the earliest days of the family, with lots of material from fellow musician Jim Kweskin, who also became a follower of Lyman – as did Paul Williams. I’m not familiar with Kweskin but I was surprised (and a little disappointed) to hear that Paul “Crawdaddy” Williams, who displayed such an independent strain of thought in the pieces collected in Outlaw Blues, could have fallen in with a cult – particularly one in which he gave up his own individual thought. I guess if nothing else this is a demonstration of the cult of personality, something Lyman apparently shared with Manson – though the drug regimen he put his followers through didn’t hurt matters. 

There’s quite a bit of stuff about some flap at a radio station where Lyman’s music was about to be played, but the levels were wrong, and the family accused the station of intentionally doing this, leading to a scuffle – as I say, Felton quite develops the theme of an undercurrent of violence in the Lyman Family. Also mystery, with the investigation leading Felton to realize that Lyman had at least one secret identity, which he apparently used in a brief capacity as a music director at that radio station. Meanwhile Felton hangs with the cult members at family HQ in Boston, where they eat communal meals and throw people in an isolation room for running afoul of groupthink. You kind of what to go back in time and shake the shit out of these people – I mean it’s the height of the goddamn counterculture era and they’re giving up their most basic rights for a dude who plays the banjo. Oh and on that note – family members are also occasionally denied having sex by Lyman, despite the fact that he himself has plenty of gals for his personal enjoyment. 

Felton does a good job of building the mystery around Mel Lyman, though; the vast majority of the story is just Felton talking to people about Lyman. One of the more interesting parts concerns Mark Frechette, an actor who at the time was momentarily famous for starring in Zabriskie Point, Michelangelo Antonini’s flop counterculture movie of 1970 – which also was spotlighted in Rolling Stone at the time. Many years ago, when Zabriskie Point was almost impossible to find, I went on a hunt for it and then learned about Frechette; all I knew was that he’d been an unknown, discovered on the spot by Antonini and cast as the lead in his picture. And also that he died in prison a few years after the movie was released – having been sent there for robbing a bank. What I didn’t know was that Frechette was involved with the Lyman Family, and Felton spends a bit of time with him here in the story…mostly relating how Frechette kept trying to sway Antonini to the Lyman path. Interesting here that Frechette is presented as someone who will be going on to a Hollywood career, which was not to be. 

When Lyman does appear in the finale, he’s almost humble and soft-spoken, quite anticlimactic after the preceding 170-some pages of buildup. He’s a far cry from Manson, I mean to say; Felton even drops incidental details like how Lyman is missing teeth. He comes off more like an underdog than a cult leader, but then again this might have been his intention – this meeting with Lyman stems from the family’s concern that Felton was going to write a negative story about them. Speaking of which, prior to the Lyman meeting there’s an unintentionally humorous bit where some of Lyman’s thugs confront Felton in his home and make vague threats to him, and Felton finally kicks them out – and they leave! I mean they’re totally in a different league than Manson’s family. 

Anyway, as a document of the era’s “acid gurus,” Mindfuckers is pretty interesting. The writing is good throughout, but the book certainly isn’t worth the exorbitant prices booksellers charge for it; if you’re after the Manson piece, you can also find it in the much-more-affordable paperback anthology The Age Of Paranoia, credited to The Editors of Rolling Stone and published by Pocket Books in 1972.

Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry

October, 1975  Bantam Books

I’m not sure how I’ve gone this long without reading Helter Skelter; supposedly it’s the best-selling True Crime book of all time, and it certainly had a landmark effect upon the reading public when it was first published in hardcover in 1974. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the famous TV movie adaptation, but then I was only two years old when it came out in 1976, so I was a little outside the target audience. That said, I do recall seeing the beginning of it on TV sometime in the late ‘90s, landing on the channel right when the guy sees the corpses in the opening scene and then rushes off to puke; my buddy Ken quipped that a stagehand probably handed the actor a milkshake off-camera as he rushed by, so he could spit it out and feign puking. 

Well anyway let’s get back on track. I read The Family a few months ago – right during Christmas in fact! – and it really whetted my appetite for more Manson Family fun. Seriously though, there is some humor in prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s and co-writer Curt Gentry’s Helter Skelter, but it’s always very subtle, and nothing on the narratorial eye-rolling level of Ed Sanders (“ooo-eee-ooo” and such). But I was very happy to discover that there’s hardly any overlap between the two books; Sanders covers a wealth of material not here, and vice versa. And in fact I’d say reading The Family first, as I did, might even work better, as Sanders starts from the beginning of Manson’s criminal life and goes up to the Tate-Labianca murder trial (which isn’t even covered), while Bugliosi starts with the murders and then flashes back, before spending the majority of the text on the trial. 

This is because Bugliosi was the prosecutor on the case, and thus was in a better position than anyone to write the final word on Charles Manson and his fucked-up followers. And clearly he invested himself in the project; there is, as others have commented, an air of arrogance about Bugliosi’s narrative, with Bugliosi constantly right and others constantly wrong, but to tell the truth I didn’t mind it one bit. Indeed, it gives Helter Skelter a bit of a pulp vibe, with Vincent Bugliosi the crusader for justice and Manson his satanic archenemy, with the bumbling cops constantly getting in Bugliosi’s way. 

Bugliosi’s “arrogance” mostly arises over the incessant mistakes made by the LAPD. Perhaps in the mid 1970s it might have seemed surprising or hard to believe that “experts” could constantly make mistakes, but personally I found it one of many instances in which Bugliosi was ahead of his time. For, if we have learned nothing else in these past four years, it’s that “the experts” seldom know what the fuck they are talking about. It’s especially prescient in the parts concerning two different coroners working on the murders; one of them is so dense he keeps refuting his own findings when he’s up on the stand, only for Bugliosi to have to bring out the doctor’s own notes to show him what he’d originally stated. As for the detectives working the case, they’re either forgetful, stupid, or just plain have no idea what to do – possibly all of the above. 

The impression conveyed is that Bugliosi himself was the only person who “got” the case, who kept everything moving, who kept all the notes and kept track of everything. Who understood that “Helter Skelter” was Charles Manson’s philosopy of a race war armageddon, and the Tate-LaBianca (and other) murders were his way of kickstarting this armageddon. And who succeeded in convincing a jury of Manson’s guilt. But again, all this gives Helter Skelter a pulp vibe, which I really enjoyed; Bugliosi the criminologist who butts heads with the authorities in his determined pursuit of justice. If there is a hero in the Manson story, it would be Bugliosi – or Linda Kasabian, the Family member who turned against Manson on the witness stand. But then, Kasabian is herself the source of endless conspiracy conjecture, in particular that it was she who concoted the Tate murders, given that she was running a drug ring on the side with Charles “Tex” Watson (ie the guy who did most of the murdering at Tate and LaBianca). 

Even here it’s as if Bugliosi predicts the future detractors of the Helter Skelter narrative; he takes us through Linda Kasabian’s testimony, telling us at the end that she’s been on the stand for eighteen days, not once stumbling over her story, not once outted as a liar in cross examination. Bugliosi also admits she’s not the perfect little girl next door, and that she had her own issues with the law pre-Manson. But he also makes clear she is not a murderer, and that she’s the bravest of the lot because she turns on Manson. Bugliosi even takes apart the “Linda planned it” conspiracy theory in the final pages of Helter Skelter, and also skewers the “copycat murder” theory – most notably wondering how, if it was what really happened, why it wasn’t even brought up until the penalty phase of the trial, after Manson and his ilk were found guilty! And as Bugliosi also notes, the “copycat” idea was first floated in a Rolling Stone article by David Felton and David Dalton. Bugliosi makes a clear case that the “copycat killer” narrative had its origin in this very article, which took up practically the entirety of the June 25, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone. Titled “Year Of The Fork, Night Of The Hunter,” the article was collected in two 1972 paperbacks: The Age Of Paranoia, credited to The Editors Of Rolling Stone and published by Pocket Books, and in the memorably-titled (and scarce) Mindfuckers (review forthcoming), edited by David Felton and published by Rolling Stone’s Straight Arrow imprint. 

To get back to my original point, though, there really isn’t much overlap between Sanders’s and Bugliosi’s books. Sanders almost pedantically covers the daily activities of the Family, throwing us into it with a multitude of characters with countless aliases, to the point that the reader is both confused and annoyed. He also focuses a lot on the roots of Manson’s philosopy, from Scientology to Stranger In A Strange Land to the Process. Hell, even a Satanic cult that drinks dog blood factors into the mix. Bugliosi doesn’t concern himself as much with explaining why Manson came to be, and in fact the Process stuff isn’t even broached until the final pages. To Bugliosi it’s all much more simple to explain: Manson was a depraved sadist who used prison psychology and psychedelic drugs to control easily-influenced youth, with the additional note that these youth themselves were already predisposed to violence and crime. 

When I read The Family I enjoyed it, though I got a bit fatigued toward the end. I had a suspicion that I’d enjoy Bugliosi’s book more. And that certainly turned out to be the case; no disrespect to Ed Sanders’s book, which is a fine read, but Helter Skelter is in a different league. It is masterfully told, Bugliosi and Gentry taking you through the long, twisting story with the pace never lagging. It is also structured differently than Sanders’s book; instead of starting at the beginning, Helter Skelter features a memorable opening set on the morning after the murders, with the discovery of the bodies and the ensuing panic and confusion. The reader is hooked from the first sentence: “It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.” The first quarter of the book retains this tone, reading almost like a crime novel. 

Then Bugliosi himself enters the narrative, apologizing to us for his sudden intrusion. This is because Bugliosi becomes part of the story, chosen seemingly at random to be the DA to prosecute the killers. At this point the second brunt of the narrative occurs, detailing how the murders occurred, how the Manson Family was finally tabbed as the perpetrators. And then the main portion of the text concerns the eight-month trial that ensued, Helter Skelter at this point becoming a legal thriller with a bird’s eye view of one of the biggest trials in “the annals of crime.” 

At 676 pages of small, dense print, Helter Skelter is not a quick read by any means. The cumulative effect is that the reader feels as if he has been as immersed in Manson’s world as Vincent Bugliosi was. And unlike Sanders’s The Family, which ran to only a little over 400 pages, at no point does the narrative become overwhelming. Bugliosi, who made a career of breaking information down for a jury to understand (and act upon), masterfully demonstrates his technique in the narrative. The only thing Sanders was better at was in the capturing of time and place, but then Sanders was part of the counterculture, whereas Bugliosi was not. Despite which, there is no indication of judgment or condemnation in Helter Skelter, other than of the murders, of course. The concept that Vincent Bugliosi was a staunch member of the establishment, sneering at these hippie types, is quickly dashed when one actually reads the book. 

Speaking of actually reading Helter Skelter: I mentioned in my review of The Family that while reading it I’d find myself going down various rabbit holes of research. As hard as it is to believe, there are still conspiracy theories about the Tate-LaBianca murders; I guess I first learned this when I read Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil (1987) about a decade ago. And today there are blogs and websites that will tell you, with nothing but conjecture, that the Tate-LaBianca killings were in retaliation for a drug burn, or that the killings were really “copycat murders” to get an imprisoned Family member out of jail, or that the entire thing was an MK-Ultra project courtesy the government. (Granted, the people who tell you MK-Ultra was involved will also tell you the Moon Landing was staged.) 

The funny thing is, Helter Skelter takes on the majority of these alternate theories…and knocks them down, one by one. Of course, the modern sentiment is that Bugliosi was a prosecutor with a narrative he was trying to push (ie, that Helter Skelter was the reason behind the murders)…and yet, this guy spent years of his life on this case, fully committed to it, going to the locations and actually speaking to the killers, which is more than you can say about some guy who runs a Manson blog. All of which is to say, I take Bugliosi’s word as the final word on this topic; his “helter skelter” argument, while nuts, makes more sense than any of the other theories, all of which fall apart when prodded a little. And remember, Manson himself was fond of saying “no sense makes sense,” hence trying to figure out why the Tate and LaBianca homes were chosen might be a fool’s quest. That said, Bugliosi’s conjecture makes more sense than anything else: Sharon Tate was living in a house once occupied by producer Terry Melcher, and while Manson knew Melcher no longer lived there (Bugliosi also recounts how Manson visited the property twice while Tate lived there), it’s likely he wanted to send a message to Melcher, as Manson had a grudge with Melcher over a potential recording contract. As for the LaBiancas, they had the misfortune of living across the street from a house where the Manson Family would often hang out the year before. 

But just to look at a few of these conspiracy theories. For one, when I read The Family I shared Ed Sanders’s suspicions about the young groundskeeper at the Tate estate, William Garretson. This is the guy who was mere yards away from the murders as they went down, yet claimed to have neither heard nor saw anything. Sanders muses that he might’ve been hypnotized, and on one of those aforementioned blogs I saw a post that stated, without a shred of supporting evidence, that Garretson had gotten his job because he was a boytoy of Rudy Altobelli, owner of the Tate property. And further, Garretson had just had sex with young Steven Parent, the 18 year-old who was murdered for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time (the official story being that he’d shown up late at night to try to sell Garretson a ball clock radio). According to this post, Parent had really come over to Garretson’s place for a late-night fling, and was on his way home when he ran into the killers. 

And yet in Helter Skelter we are told that Garretson was polygraphed extensively by the LAPD, and one of the questions he was asked was whether he’d ever had sex with any of the victims. Garretson answered “no,” and he passed the goddamn test. This is what I mean when I say Helter Skelter constantly skewers any alternate theories. Not only that, but we are told that the LAPD also extensively researched Garretson’s story about not hearing any screams the night of the murders; a cop happened to notice what volume Garretson’s stereo was at the morning after the killings, and sound specialists went in there one night and played the stereo at that volume while others off in the Tate house screamed and tried to replicate the night of the murders. (Boy, sounds like a fun night’s work, doesn’t it?) And here too Garretson’s story passed muster; the experts proved that you could not hear screams and such in Garretson’s house, no doubt given the tricky way sound played there in the canyon. 

Bugliosi even goes back to Garretson much later in the book, briefly detailing his time on the stand during the trial. Again his story is cleared. And yet a stigma hangs over him even to this day (he died in 2016, so isn’t around to defend himself), courtesy conspiracy theories that started with Ed Sanders and others. Conspiracy theories like that Sharon Tate and her friends were into the occult, hence the “hood” that was found over Jay Sebring’s face, and also several more hoods that were found in the loft above the living room – this material, also originating in Sanders’s book, was a particular source of conjecture in Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil. 

And yet even here the alternate theory is shot; while never mentioning Sanders by name, Bugliosi sarcastically refers to “a writer” who made up those hoods whole-cloth, as there were no such things found in the Tate home. Nor – again disproving Sanders’s musings – were there any sex films or orgy movies, other that is than a brief film showing Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski having sex. (A film, Bugliosi tells us, that the LAPD respectfully put right back where they found it after their search.) As for the “hood” on Sebring’s corpse – itself the source of more “satanic mafia” conjecture – Bugliosi explains that as well: it was a towel, not a hood, and it was thrown there by murderer Susan “Sadie Glutz” Atkins, who wrote “Pig” in blood on the door with the towel and then tossed it behind her on the way out, not looking to see where it landed. 

Stuff like this is just an indication of how successfully we readers are pulled into the story; Bugliosi treats us as if we are the jury, giving us all kinds of information that was never made available to the public. (Given that this book was published in 1974 and Manson Family conspiracy theories still linger, one wonders if those conspiracy theorists have even ever read Helter Skelter.) There’s a part in the book where Bugliosi reveals how President Nixon made an errant comment that Manson was guilty, while the trial was still underway, and Bugliosi suspects that, if the sequestered jury had even heard the comment, they would’ve been offended because Nixon had taken away their decision. Having handled so many trials, Bugliosi is aware that jurors soon relish being part of the proceedings, privy to information the outside world doesn’t know. I found this a very astute observation, as I somewhat felt this way when called as a juror in a Federal criminal trial last year – it was like being pulled into a completely alien world, one where I was treated with great importance and expected to make the final decision. 

Unlike Sanders, where the tide of multiple-named Family members soon became overwhelming, as did their peripatetic wanderings, the story here unfolds with an almost relentless pace; evocative scene-setting in the opening quarter (the discovery of the corpses is especially well-handled…as is the darkly comic ineptness of the LAPD in mishandling the evidence), and the “good vs evil” motif of the trial is also entertaining and constantly gripping. And while Bugliosi clearly sees Manson as a force of evil – the Epilogue is essentially a condemnation of him as a modern Hitler – from the vantage point of fifty-plus years on I have to say Charles Manson comes off more like a buffoon than anything else. 

Maybe in 1974, with the fear of more Tate-LaBianca-style murders in the dead of night (Bugliosi often scares us by noting various Family members who have a proclivity to kill…and then warning us that they’re “still out there”), Manson might have seemed like a supernatural force of evil. Indeed, The Cult Of Killers was about this very concept. Seen from the modern perspective, however, Manson doesn’t so much seem malicious as he does a guy who relishes his brief moment in the national spotlight. The trial is the best indication of this, with Manson and his three female followers looking like fools as they throw tantrums in court, or talk about how Manson might be the reincarnation of Christ, and so on. That anyone took them seriously is yet another indication of how, despite the drugs and stuff, the ‘60s were just a more innocent time. 

Bugliosi himself feels no fear – though he frequently reminds us that he had reason to be scared – and indeed there are some funny parts where he has interractions with female Family members, calling two of them a “bitch” in confrontations. He also “raps” often with Manson during the trial, and, at least insofar as the text goes, Bugliosi displays how there was a respectful rivalry between the two of them, with another humorous part at the end where Manson himself has to defend Bugliosi in court, given that Manson asked to talk to Bugliosi after the trial and the defense lawyers thought it might be a breach. It’s curious, though, because when Manson does interract with Bugliosi in the book, he comes off as a harmless befuddled hippie, not the malevolent mastermind of the Helter Skelter plot…but then, that was probably inentional. Bugliosi also astutely notes how Manson could turn himself off and on, how he could be a different person for different audiences – particularly when there were cameras around. Or when impressionable, acid-fried young women and men were around. 

Also unlike in The Family the characters here are memorable, and Bugliosi actually does Manson a service by keeping him off-page for the majority. This gives Charles Manson even more of an “evil mastermind” persona, again no doubt intentionally; it’s his true-blue female believers Bugliosi most encounters, in particular future would-be Presidential assassin Squeaky Fromme. (An act which occurred after publication of the book, though Bugliosi again sees the future by stating in the Epilogue how Squeaky is more than capable of evil, and is “still out there”). Bugliosi also seems a little taken with Susan Atkins aka Sadie Glutz, the former topless dancer who nonchalantly talked on the witness stand about stabbing Sharon Tate until she stopped screaming, and then turned “snitch” on Manson. And then changed her mind, to be condemned to death with the others. I got a chuckle out of Bugliosi’s random comment that most of Manson’s girls were flat-chested…except for Sadie, of course. 

As with his comments on Squeaky, Bugliosi demonstrates a strange prescience when discussing Leslie Van Houten. Given less narrative space than the other killers in Helter Skelter, Van Houten is ultimately portrayed as a spoiled rich girl with little concern for others. However, Bugliosi notes when quoting prison psych evals, Van Houten was “less devoted” to Manson than the other killers, and there was question of what exactly she did on the LaBianca killing (she wasn’t part of the Tate group): from her own account Van Houten “stabbed” Rosemary LaBianca, but was Rosemary already dead? There is a sort of question mark hanging over Leslie Van Houten in Helter Skelter, as if Bugliosi is unsure how to feel about her…which makes it interesting that Van Houten is the only one of the killers who is now free (released from prison in 2023). But then, Bugliosi also notes that Van Houten’s lawyer was better than the other defense lawyers. 

The other benefit of reading Helter Skelter so long after publication is to see how everything panned out – given that the death sentences were commuted to life per California Supreme Court decree, Bugliosi speculates that Manson and the others will be eligible for parole in seven years, and further speculates that while Manson might not get out, the girls probably would in twenty or thirty years. But it turns out that “life” really meant life, at least for Susan Atkins (who died of brain cancer in prison in 2009) and Manson himself (who died of natural causes in prison in 2017). This only leaves Patricia Krenwinkel and Tex Watson, and given the savagery of their actions those nights I doubt either will ever be released from prison. Speaking of Tex I was very surprised to learn he was from nearby Denton, Texas. And Linda Kasabian had one of the sadder fates, essentially disappearing from public view before appearing in a few Manson docs in the late 2000s, ultimately dying penniless in 2023. 

It’s a credit to Bugliosi that he even got Manson and his followers convicted, as Bugliosi didn’t receive much help from the cops. Again the idea that “the experts” know what they are doing is put to the test as we read how evidence was overlooked, misplaced, or not even properly gathered – Bugliosi is particularly vexed that one of the techs failed to take blood samples from all of the pools of blood at the Tate residence, merely assuming they were from the same victim. Of course this has only served to inspire more conspiracy theory conjecture today. Speaking of which, another angle Ed Sanders mused upon was that Sharon Tate’s body was moved post-mortem, but not by her killers, intimating that Manson came back later to do so. None of that is mentioned here, and in fact we are told that the killers did indeed have rope with them, in the hopes of hanging their prey from rafters, thus bringing to life one of Manson’s Helter Skelter maxims. Bugliosi also refers frequently to the mysterious pair of glasses left at the scene, but this is another non-mystery, given comments Sadie made to an inmate that none of the killers wore glasses. 

I didn’t think I’d be as interested in the trial material, but it turned out to be just as fascinating as everything else – though admitedly I enjoyed the opening sequence of the book the most, with its brutal documentation of the discovery of the corpses, up to the capture of Manson and the killers. I almost wish the entire book had been like that. But then, Bugliosi as mentioned becomes part of the story itself, and to be honest once he was the protagonist of the book I could barely remember him not being in the book. He successfully brings you into the story, and I didn’t think he was arrogant so much as he was convinced of how right he was…and again, there’s a lot of subtle humor throughout, as he essentially bangs his head against the wall when confronted by errant stupidity, most notably by the blustering delay tactics of one of the defense attorneys. 

Again, this is not a quick read. It took me about a month to read Helter Skelter, but then I was reading other books at the same time. Well, not at the same time, but you know what I mean. I kind of wanted to savor the experience because I enjoyed it so much. And more than Sanders, Bugliosi brings home the loss of the victims; I was especially moved by his closing argument in the trial: “Sharon Tate…Abigail Folger…Voytek Frykowski…Jay Sebring…Steven Parent…Leno LaBianca…Rosemary LaBianca…are not here with us now in this courtroom, but from their graves they cry out for justice.” Helter Skelter is the enthralling account of how Vincent Bugliosi got them that justice. If like me you’ve gone this long without reading it – well, read it now! I loved it, and will probably read it again someday.

The Family

The Family, by Ed Sanders

No month stated, 1971  E.P. Dutton

Years ago I went on a short-lived Charles Manson kick and picked up this first edition of The Family, courtesy author-poet Ed Sanders, founding member of the group The Fugs and also the author of the surreal Shards Of God, which I keep meaning to re-read some day. Given how much I enjoyed that novel I decided I’d read Sanders’ nonfiction study of the Manson cult, and specifically this first edition, as it contains material that was expurgated in all subsequent editions. 

At 400+ pages, The Family is certainly comprehensive, perhaps too much so, as it almost pedantically details the day-by-day events of the Manson “family” (Sanders never capitalizes the term, by the way, and nor will I), to the extent that the reader gets exhausted. And Manson and cohorts aren’t the most enjoyable people to spend over 400 pages with. Sanders’ unusual prose style is a huge help in making the mundane stuff entertaining; he routinely doles out memorable, oddball phrases, and he writes the book in a sort of New Journalism style that isn’t too far off from what Tom Wolfe was doing at the time. With the caveat that Sanders, unlike Wolfe, is deadly serious throughout, and indeed his hatred for Manson and his ilk is palpable. 

Consider my surprise, then, when I accessed my Rolling Stone Cover To Cover CD-Rom and pulled up the review of Sanders’s book, from the November 25, 1971 issue. Reviewer Ed McClanahan spends three columns of small print bashing the book, mostly due to Ed Sanders’s “aggressively moralizing” tone. For some reason the Rolling Stone reviewer is surprised that Sanders comes out against sacrifice, muder, and blood-drinking; in particular McClanahan is shocked that Sanders ends the book with the plea that California must be purged of freaks like Manson. Also, McClanahan disparages the “bad writing” of The Family, noting Sanders’s frequent subpar phrases and outright mistakes, though he theorizes that such things might be “intentional…[as if] Sanders had cunningly planted them throughout the book as a kind of peculiar comic relief.” (Somehow though McClanahan, when giving examples of Sanders’s “bad writing,” fails to note the most egregious example – both of bad writing and an indication that it was intentional for comedic effect – when at one point Sanders actually writes the phrase “allegedly alleged.” You don’t write a phrase like that accidentally.) 

Indeed, McClanahan caps off his Rolling Stone review with “The Family…is the very best bad book I’ve ever read,” as if this were the book equivalent of cinema turkeys like The Valley Of The Dolls…which, of course, featured Manson victim Sharon Tate. Personally I enjoyed Sanders’s writing here; he has a definite gift for those aforementioned oddball phrases and description, though it must be acknowledged that sometimes his narrative becomes rather flat in its wearying documentation of every single day’s events. He also often undercuts his own tension with asides that quickly become grating, like narratorial versions of eye-rolling (ie, mocking certain Manson banalities with the phrase “ooo-eee-ooo”). I also got annoyed with Sanders’ apparent obsession with the word “oozing,” which is used so frequently that one could make a drinking game out of it. 

Now, as to this first edition from E.P. Dutton. It features an entire chapter removed from all ensuing editions, focusing as it does on ‘60s subcult The Process. In addition to this chapter, it appears that all references to The Process throughout the book have been removed from later editions of The Family. This must make for a bumpy read, as Sanders refers to The Process a helluva lot in this first edition of the book, and he makes a grand case that Charles Manson was heavily influenced by them. (Later editions of the book lacked all this material because The Process successfully sued E.P. Dutton and Ed Sanders, but it appears the UK editions remained unscathed.) Several years ago I read Maury Terry’s phenomenal ‘80s True Crime classic The Ultimate Evil, which is where I learned of Ed Sanders’ book in the first place; Terry refers often to Sanders’ Process connection, building up an argument that Manson was actually part of a sort of Satanic crime syndicate. 

Ed Sanders doesn’t go to such theories in The Family; for the most part he sticks to the narrative prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi used to get Manson and his assassins on Death Row – and speaking of which, I so enjoyed The Family that immediately after finishing it I ordered myself a copy of Bugliosi’s bestseller Helter Skelter. The title of Bugliosi’s book refers to Manson’s supposed doctrine: that a race war would take over America and Manson and his followers would hide out in a magical city beneath Death Valley (one with friggin’ chocolate fountains), to eventually come out and be accepted as the leaders of the victorious blacks – who, per Manson’s warped ideology, would be unable to govern themselves. 

The Process was just one of the “sleazo inputs” Sanders says Manson was inspired by; there was also a Satanic cult that drank dog blood that was running around in Southern California at the time, and also Manson was really into the biker cults of the day, particularly the Straight Satans. Not to mention the Esalen Institute. And of course there was Manson’s years and years in prison, where he learned about Scientology, another belief system that Manson pillaged from to make his own. Sanders relegates the book to the years 1955 through 1969, opening with Manson getting married and having a child but regularly – almost addictively – getting in trouble with the law and going to jail, until ultimately he spends the majority of the early to mid ‘60s in Federal prison…which he reportedly begged to stay in, because he didn’t understand straight society. 

What makes this curious is the multiple times Manson will manage to escape custody once he’s out; Sanders, clearly in disbelief himself, documents time and again how Manson escapes prison, even after commiting rape, murder, theft, possession, and a host of other infractions. Regardless, Charles Manson certainly picked up on the vibe of the times, going around like a sleazier version of Ken Kesey and putting together his own not-so-Merry Pranksters. Sanders documents all of this; there are a host of characters in The Family, and it becomes difficult at times for the reader to remember who is who, particularly given that so many of the family members have several names. Sanders keeps it all straight, yet at the same time one can’t help but wonder how accurate a lot of this is – even down to random mistakes that cast doubt on the entirety. By this I mean Sanders’s statemement, midway through the book, that Manson shoots a drug dealer in the stomach on July 1…and then notes later that the guy gets out of the hospital on June 14. And this is all the same year, 1969. (A mistake McClanahan also notes in his review.) 

Otherwise The Family was very informative, as I must admit I only knew the general story of Manson and his followers. Having read the book I can’t say my perceptions were greatly changed; it just added more detail to the chaos and suffering they caused. As mentioned I got exhausted at times; the family was nothing if not peripatetic, constantly traveling around California until ultimately holing up at the infamous Spahn Ranch and later in Death Valley. It must’ve been a serious amount of work to keep track of all this, not to mention trying to make sense of what happened. But then, the argument is made, even today, that Sanders’ narrative – which appears to have had its genesis with Vincent Bugliosi – might not be the whole story. In other words, the tale of the hippie killer cult might be more a product of the prosecuting attorney than what really happened. 

What’s curious is that I figured there would be no mysteries left…but I frequently found myself going down rabbit holes during my reading of The Family, only to find that, 50+ years later, there are still no answers to many of the questions posed by Sanders. For example, throughout the later half Sanders recounts random murders that occurred in California when family members were in the vicinity, implicating of course that this could be their work. I looked up the unfortunate victims, only to find that the cases were still cold. Sanders also wonders how in the hell William Garretson, the young long-haired caretaker on Sharon Tate’s property, could have “slept through” the murders that were occuring mere yards away from his cottage, complete with screams in the night that would have echoed through the valley. It seems that there never was a sufficient answer for this (Garretson himself died in 2016, and in the late ‘80s he gave one interview where he said he did see two women chasing each other that night), and Sanders speculates that Garretson might have been “hypnotized” by the family. My guess is that the dude was probably high on acid or whatever (hey, it was L.A. in 1969) and didn’t want to tell the cops that when they interrogated him. 

Another rabbit hole is the missing videotape Sanders almost obsessively refers to in the book. In another of those random flukes that seemed to bless the early family, Manson et al were able to get hold of an NBC camera and proceeded to make videotapes of themselves. According to Sanders, some of these depicted the drugged-out family doing dances that recounted the Tate murders, or another tape showing them drinking blood, or another one depicting a Satanic orgy, and on and on – but, according to Sanders, the tapes have disappeared. Doesn’t look like they’ve been found yet, that is if they ever existed. Some years ago I recall watching a program on the Fox network titled Manson: The Lost Tapes, or something like that, but as I recall the “newly-discovered footage” was innocuous stuff like the family members at the Spahn Ranch talking about how great Charlie was. Another mythical film Sanders notes is the one the LAPD supposedly found in the Tate residence, depicting big-name Hollywood elite indulging in an orgy and other kinky affairs; none of this has ever come to light, over 50 years later. 

The biggest question of course is why the Tate residence? Or, more importantly, why the LaBianca residence? Another mystery still unsolved all these years later. Manson never elaborated, plus years later he claimed the killings weren’t even his idea, they were Tex Watson’s (who indeed did the majority of the killing for the family). Thus we are left with all these weird coincidences that are unexplained. Like speaking of Tex Watson, Sanders notes when Watson is introduced to the text that Watson had a successful wig shop in Laurel Canyon…and, many pages later, we will see that one of Watson’s victims is Jay Sebring, a famous hairstylist who worked in Laurel Canyon at the same time that Watson had his wig shop. How could these two not have known of each other? And yet it would appear they didn’t, as one of the main stories recounted by all the family members in the Tate home that night was that Sebring asked Watson who he was, leading to the infamous “I’m the devil” response from Watson. 

Ed Sanders doesn’t even speculate on this; as McClanahan notes in his Rolling Stone review, The Family is filled with “red herrings” and “unfinished subplots” that Sanders never explains. One also suspects that Sanders basically put into the book everything he was fed about Manson, which ultimately does make Manson seem more myth than man, which certainly wasn’t Sanders’ intention. What else are we to make of the random story recounted by some nameless family member that once upon a time Charlie was getting a b.j. from a nervous female new to the family, who accidentally bit Manson’s dick “in twain,” yet with the power of his own will Charlie was able to make himself whole again? 

Or, in another howler that McClanahan also notes, what are we to make of the story that, months after the Tate-LaBianca murders, the cops infiltrated Manson’s desert hideout, wanting to bring him in on charges of dune buggy theft (it took months for the killings to be pinned on the family), and Charlie motioned into the darkened hills and told the cops he had family members out there with guns trained on them…and the cops ran away? I mean, Manson’s followers were acid-fried teens who thought Charlie was Jesus Christ, and otherwise Manson’s compatriots were bikers and other social outcasts, so perhaps all this is testament to the type of informant Ed Sanders came across: they were willing to believe anything. 

Speaking of which, Sanders provides an entertaining intro where he notes the type of sicko freaks he encountered while reseaching The Family, even stating how he went undercover at one point. All of this would have made for fine material, but Sanders doesn’t go much into it, for the most part keeping himself out of the narrative. But what really bummed me was that Sanders also noted the “thousands” of photos he took in the course of his investigation…yet there is not a single photo reproduced in The Family. Indeed, one gets the impression it was rushed straight from the galleys to the printing press, so as to be the first “major” book on Charles Manson. This would also explain the occasional gaffe in Sanders’ reporting…and also why the trial material is completely skipped over, Sanders ending his book with Manson finally being arrested. 

The murders are documented clinically, but obviously Sanders has relied on those trials for this material, as all of what happened at the Tate and LaBianca homes was only known to the killers. For some reason I was under the impression that the victims at the Tate home were mutilated, but so far as Sanders has it, they were just killed – I realize of course I’m getting into a “Hamas didn’t behead any babies, they just murdered them!” argument, but still. Sanders does allude to this when he notes that someone in the coroner’s office gave out misleading info that made the murders sound even more horrific. More interestingly is Sanders’s argument that Manson and someone else (Sanders speculates that it might’ve been family member Clem) came back to the Tate home after the killings and moved the bodies around, as none of them were found in the positions the murderers left them in. It’s my understanding Manson admitted to this in a book published decades later, but still never divulged who went with him to the murder house. 

I’ve kind of jumped around in the review, but my assumption is practically everyone is familiar with this subject. It’s curious though that, in our modern age of mass shooters and other atrocities, the Manson family still holds such interest. In that regard I’d say the old saw that the Manson families tarnished the Woodstock era might be accurate. Anyway, Sanders spends the first quarter of The Family on Manson’s early days in various jails and then getting out in the late ‘60s and basically collecting runaway, easily-molded girls and driving around Southern California in a school bus that was painted black. Around late 1968 the rot sets in; another mystery is what exactly pushed the Manson family into death and killing in 1969. This could be another indication of later editions of The Family being a bumpy read, what with all those Process mentions removed; here in the first edition, Sanders notes the “coincidence” that the Process moved into death and swastikas right before Manson did. 

The last quarter-plus is devoted to the killings, with the most “famous” of the lot, the Tate murders, getting the most spotlight. Again, the question is how this particular residence was chosen, but of course Sanders notes the connection with producer Terry Melcher, whom Manson had been chasing for months for a movie and album deal. A curious thing here is Sanders keeps using the phrase “genuine Roebucks” when describing the black jeans the killers wear on the killing missions…the same garb worn the following night, on the LaBianca murders. “Genuine Roebucks,” over and over. I mean were those jeans really that special? I mean they just bought them at Sears, right?? “Look out, everyone, I’ve got on my genuine Penneys tonight!” (I used to work at the J.C. Penney corporate office, btw – only the old-timers still called the place “Penneys.”) 

Sanders does his best to make sense out of insanity. Like for example the LaBianca kill. It starts with Charlie wanting to show his “kids” how it’s done, riding around in a car with them and then “randomly” picking out a house…which, again “coincidentally,” happens to be across from a house familiar to the family. Then he “creepy-crawls” into the house, gets the spring on the middle-aged man and woman inside, ties them up, and sends in his killers to off them. This, Sanders and Bugliosi claim, was Manson’s way to start up “helter skelter,” his race war idea that was gleaned from one of the best Beatles songs – though, as Sanders notes, it’s regrettable that Manson was unaware that a “helter skelter” was an amusement park ride in England. But if a race war, why Manson’s direction for the girls to put something “witchy” on the walls after the murders? 

Maury Terry picked up this ball in The Ultimate Evil, and now it’s pretty much a given that I’ll re-read that book. In fact I think Sanders might’ve even been one of Terry’s sources; it was from Terry’s book that I learned the first edition of The Family had the cut Process material. Terry in particular took note of a claim made by Dennis Hopper, which first appeared here in Ed Sanders’s book, that the occupents of Ciello Drive (ie the Sharon Tate residence) were into kinky freak scenes and had filmed the ritual whipping of someone who had “burned” them in a drug deal. Sanders does focus a little on the “drug burn” angle, but if anything his behind-the-scenes intimation is that Manson was perhaps working for some other cult in the killings. Maury Terry sort of extrapolates on that, picking up on the Process connection and brining in a sort of Satanic Mafia angle. 

One thing I can say though is that this is one of those books where I wished I could magically transport myself into the text so I could kick hippie ass. Surely this was some of the impetus behind Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (the novelization of which I’ll probably now get around to reading). I mean Pitt and DiCaprio – the actors themselves, not just the characters they played – could’ve probably taken out Manson and his followers without breaking a sweat. I mean Manson was like a hundred pounds soaking wet, as the saying goes – and also surely I can’t be the only one who sees the resemblance between him and The Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin? Yet for some reason Manson was able to scare people. Well, he did have a gun on the LaBiancas, and I read elsewhere that Tex Watson also creepy-crawled into the house with him, something I don’t think Sanders notes here. 

Speaking of creepy-crawling, I wonder also if Manson, or maybe even this book, was an influence on Joseph DiAngelo, the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker/Golden State Killer. “Creepy-crawling” was Manson’s term for breaking into homes at night and slipping around inside while the owners were asleep, stealing minor things or even messing with the owners in some psychological way. DiAngelo started his crime career around this time, also in Southern California, as the Visalia Cat Burglar, and given the time and place I wonder if he wasn’t somehow inspired by reading this book. Who knows – another mystery. If The Family makes anything clear it’s that a ton of weird shit was going on in Southern California in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. 

Overall I was certainly entertained by The Family, even though it probably wasn’t the best book to be reading during the Christmas season. It also had me hitting Google for searches that likely put me on various FBI watch lists. But I must mention that at times I found myself a little bored with the sometimes flat and clinical reportage; again, the impression I got was that the book was rushed to meet a deadline. I did learn a lot from it, though; I had no idea that it wasn’t for a few months that the August 1969 murders were pinned on the Manson family. Nor did I know about the dune buggy army thing Manson had in mind, a “Rommeloid” vision of him and his family ripping through Death Valley and pillaging towns. Sanders’ writing, when not going for the clinical angle, is inventive and really gives a feeling for the era. But if anything I found The Family to be like an appetizer for Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, which was published a few years later and would go on to become the bestselling True Crime book ever. 

Speaking of which, I’ve added a “True Crime” tag here on the blog, so will be reviewing Helter Skelter here once I’ve read it, along with other true crime paperbacks (not just Manson-related) I’ve picked up over the years. But sticking to the Manson topic, if interested you can also check out my review from a few years back for the obscure Manson cash-in novel The Cult Of Killers. 

Oh and speaking of the Xmas break, apologies for the two-week delay in posts. I might have to go to a single review per week schedule for the time being, as I’m reading pretty long books at the moment (one of them a literal doorstep at 1200 pages!), so I need to actually finish the books before I can review them!

The Cult Of Killers

The Cult of Killers, by Donald MacIvers
No month stated, 1976  Leisure Books

This lurid Charles Manson cash-in has become scarce over the years, probably because Justin Marriott spotlighted it The Sleazy Reader #8. I luckily managed to get a copy several years ago, but am only just now getting around to it – I’m not often in the mood for Manson-themed books, as I’ve never been much interested in the guy. I also put it off because I suspected this would be another of those Leisure winners where the back cover copy had nothing to do with the novel itself…and it turns out I was correct.

At any rate, The Cult Of Killers (the title page doesn’t have a “The,” by the way) is like a sweat mag yarn taken to novel length, and by that I mean the latter-era men’s mags, the ones from the early ‘70s that featured sleazy yarns about killer hippies and Satanic cults. Stories that were written in first person, purportedly by escaped victims of the cults. This book follows the same template, as “Donald MacIvers” is not only the name of the author but also the name of the character who narrates the book – the idea being that this is his own story, in his own words, of his escape from the Manson “cult of killers.” Unfortunately the spine of the paperback ruins the conceit, as it’s labelled “Fiction!”

I couldn’t find out who really wrote the book – it’s copyright Nordon, aka Leisure/Belmont Tower, and the Catalog Of Copyright Entries was no help. But as I read the book I began to experience déjà vu, as the narrative voice was very similar to a novel I read a few years ago. My suspicion is that the author of The Cult Of Killers is the same author who wrote The Rock Nations: George William Rae. In my review of that one I speculated that “Rae” might’ve been a pseudonym, as the book was copyright the publisher, but now I’m not so sure, as there are too many similarities between it and The Cult of Killers.

To wit, The Rock Nations is ostensibly a novel about the rock scene, about a guy going to all the major rock festivals of the day, but in reality it turns out to be a hate-filled polemic on practically everything, narrated by a bitter young counterculture type from Boston. The Cult Of Killers is ostensibly a novel about a murderous Manson cult, about a guy’s escape from the killers, but in reality it turns out to be a hate-filled polemic on practically everything, narrated by a bitter young counterculture type from Boston. More importantly, the narrative voice of the two novels is identical. For example:

The ride was smooth and fast. The cabbie was a young black guy and he didn’t talk at all. I hate the blabber-mouth hackies who bore you to death bullshitting about who they hate and who they like. Who cares? He turned across Twenty Third Street and I saw a girl I used to know. At least I think I did. 

We grew up together and she’s the first girl I ever made it with. There were all these good-looking girls. Blondes, ones with big tits, others with cute asses. But the good-looking ones were usually uptight. They would kiss with their teeth clenched. Strong-jawed Janes, you know? But this chick, Moira, she was really something.

This could’ve been lifted directly from The Rock Nations, but it’s from The Cult Of Killers. The two novels are very similar in how they start off in one direction but then get mired in incidental bitchery, lending the impression of an author angrily bashing the typewriter keys and using the plot as an excuse to take out his anger on the world. The knowledge of Boston and New York’s slummier areas is also strong in both books. I’m now suspecting that George William Rae followed a sort of Manning Lee Stokes career path: he published his own material in his early career but eventually ended up writing pseudonymous books that were copyright whoever hired him. Another clue might be Confessions Of The Boston Strangler (Pyramid Books, 1967), another book credited to George William Rae – which would indicate that Rae was familiar with both Boston and with murderers.

Well anyway, enough armchair investigation. As mentioned the novel has the same sleazy vibe as one of those “I escaped a hippie death cult” men’s mag stories, even opening the same way, with “Mac” telling us he’s now hunted by them, and beginning his story with the day he decided to get out of the cult. The book by the way operates in a sort of alternate reality in which Manson started off a nation-wide “Cult of Killers,” composed of drug-crazed fiends who do Charlie’s bidding, receiving his orders via telepathy or something. Unfortunately Mac never gives us much of a reason of why he even joined the cult in the first place, but the front cover doesn’t lie: Donald MacIvers is indeed a “sadistic killer,” who along with his fellow cult members has murdered innocent men, women, and even children. This really makes it hard to root for the guy, particularly given that, by his own admission, he basically joined the cult because he didn’t have much else going on!

This opening part is almost squirm-inducing in how grungy and gross it is; Mac and his fellow cult members live in total filth and squalor in a Lower East Side apartment, and per tradition for any crime novel set in Manhattan it’s a sweltering summer. Mac wakes up from a nightmare and beside him on the bed is Big Esmerelda, aka Big Es, a “big fat blonde broad” cult member who carries a .45 strapped to her meaty thigh. Mac casually informs us that he “fucks” Big Es a lot, as he has so many other women in the cult – as well as some of the men, per Charlie’s encouraged switch-hitting. Leading the gang is Crazy Mary, a thin brunette with a slight build who emanates an aura of evil comparable to Manson’s; Mac implies that she’s basically a female Manson. And also she apparently does receive ESP directions from her unholy master, as Crazy Mary and her gang will mysteriously track Mac wherever he goes around the city, always at his heels.

The author also well captures the pure evil of Mary as she closes in on Mac, suspecting something’s up with him. We don’t get much explanation – in fact Mac’s pretty vague about most everything – but he’s had his fill of the killing and the blood and he wants out immediately. It’s all clammy and sweaty and smelly in the grungy room, the other killers surrounding Mac at their leaders’s behest. There are only a few of them, and they aren’t much brought to life: there’s some nameless guy new to the group, a couple other girls, but sad to say this is all we’ll see of any of them. Even Crazy Mary! This will be her only “real” scene in the entire book, with Big Es doing all the heavy lifting. This is a shame because Mary has the potential of being a great villain…she’s apparently pretty, other than those crazy eyes, and also has “big breasts” for a slim girl, but amazingly enough Mac does very little to exploit any of this; Crazy Mary exists more as a representative of Manson, directing her minions from afar.

Big Es speaks for Mac’s innocence, and Crazy Mary temporarily calls off her plans to kill him – the idea being, the cult sees life as so meaningless that they’re doing people a favor by killing them. However someone who runs from the cult would warrant a much more lasting punishment before death, hence Mac’s terror that Crazy Mary has figured out that he plans to run away. But again it’s hard to give a damn about Mac because, by his own admission, he’s murdered various innocents. At any rate he and Big Es are ordered to go out and steal some groceries. The author certainly knows New York City, and at times attains almost a Len Levinson vibe with topical details of the various streets, to the point that it almost comes off like a guided tour of mid-‘70s Manhattan. Big Es and Mac end up in a place off 9th; Big Es goes into a routine of pretending to choke, but instead of stealing groceries Mac makes a run for it.

Here we get the first glimpse of the unintentional humor the novel will attain. For despite being “passed out” on the grocery floor mere moments ago, Big Es is right behind Mac moments after he dashes out of the store – not even hampered by the fact that she’s a “big fat broad.” Yes, she’s immediately seen Mac run out of the store and she instantly gives chase, her sharpened knife ready to gut him. Mac jumps the subway gates and is promptly caught and arrested, relieved to be taken into custody and away from the waiting Big Es. Another big problem with The Cult Of Killers is that our narrator is a murdering cultist…yet it never occurs to him to fight back against his former comrades. He just runs like a dog until the very end, when he belatedly realizes: “Hey, I can fight them -- that might keep them from chasing after me!”

It was at this point that I began to suspect “Donald MacIvers” was George William Rae, or whoever wrote The Rock Nations. There’s a random digression on prison life as Mac is taken through various levels of custody, with equally-random diatribing throughout, including a super-random bit where a famous young black man is thrown in the same jail as Mac and the cops are worried. But then Mac’s bail is paid for, and Mac knows it’s Crazy Mary looking to get him back on the streets so she can kill him. So a freed Mac does what most any other “cult member on the run” would do…he goes into a public bathroom and propositions the first dude who looks like he’s come in here looking for a gay fling. Off they go to a hotel, where Mac gives the guy a bj for some cash.

As if this weren’t random enough, it gets even more random – the dude leaves and Mac stays in the room a bit, wondering what to do. Then he gets a phone call, and it’s the guy he was just with: turns out this dude promptly went to a gay orgy, where one of the guys got a Coke bottle stuck up his ass(!!), and would Mac mind coming over to try to get it out? I mean WTF?? Folks this actually happens in the book. Mac’s been called for the job because his new friend just assumes he knows what to do…and sure enough Mac does. He rolls on over, arranges some towels on the floor, then punches the Coke-bottler in the face…and the dude starts “instantly shitting,” which dislodges the bottle. So now you know what to do if you ever find yourself in such a situation…

The author gradually gets back to the plot at hand; Mac might be from Boston but he knows people all over Manhattan, and through various calls he’s put in line with a safe house he could use. Only problem is it’s owned by the Mafia, and if Mac wants to stay there he’ll have to do courier jobs for them. For some inexplicable reason Mac’s against this, even though he joined a friggin’ cult because he didn’t have anything else to do. What makes it all the more ridiculous is that Mac’s set up with a drop-dead beauty who comes over for some (mostly off-page) sex, after which the mob guy tells Mac that the girl will be his if he takes the courier job with them. But Mac says no, and leaves…then comes to his senses and tries to go back. Unfortunately Big Es is there, the first of many ensuing instances in which she and the other cult members magically appear.

At this point it’s a somewhat tense thriller as Mac rushes all over the city, Big Es always appearing no matter where he goes. Finally he realizes he should just leave the city, and gets on a bus to Boston. Surprisingly here the author delivers what is by far the most explicit sex scene in the novel; a brunette beauty named Trish sits on the seat beside Mac, and after a little conversation she asks him if he wants to screw, right here on the bus. It’s a pretty hardcore sequence, complete with the novel means with which the girl ensures Mac’s, uh, seed doesn’t stain her dress (spoiler alert: it involves her mouth). Trish develops into what could be the main female character in the novel, even though she’s unceremoniously dropped from the text: she’s a hooker whose pimp was arrested, so now she’s going to Boston to stake out new grounds.

The author develops a somewhat meaningful relationship between the two; Mac and Trish spend a few weeks living together, while meanwhile she tries to find a new pimp in Boston’s sleazy Combat Zone, which we’re informed is ten times sleazier than Times Square. Yet even here Big Es shows up! Trish is shuttled off to a nice job at a fancy whorehouse, and nothing else is said of her. For by this time Mac’s finally realized he can fight back, and gets himself a .38 and a hunting knife. His confrontation with Big Es and a few other cult members is capably handled, with Mac shooting and dicing the freaks, and it makes you wish there’d been more stuff like this throughout the book.

But instead…the narrative deflates like a burst balloon…we’re geared for more vengeance-dispensing, particularly a comeuppance for Crazy Mary, but Mac jumps forward in time and says Big Es has posthumously become a hero in the movement, and now the cult is even more determined to hunt him down and kill him. He’s written this book in seclusion, you see, and tells us he might consider the FBI’s offer of security, though he doubts he will. The book is so sloppily plotted that Mac tells us Crazy Mary even tracked him down to a small town he was hiding in, and then he flashes back to an interminable ramble on how he arrived in said small town – yet he never bothers to tell us about Crazy Mary’s arrival! Instead the novel ends with him newly arrived in the town, fearing that Mary will inevitably show up…something we know will happen, as we were just told about it several pages before!

At this point The Cult Of Killers limps to a close. As a “cult member on the run” tale goes, it’s an abject failure; too much of it is comprised of random asides, pontificating, or bitching. The characters are not sufficiently developed to make you care for them, and as I’ve mentioned a few times now it’s impossible to root for a guy who himself is a “sadistic murderer.” However the topical details about Manhattan and the Combat Zone are great, and the author – despite the poor plotting and whatnot – can definitely write. But then, The Rock Nations was also well written, despite being a bore of a book.