Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, by Vincent Bugliosi

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this blog. Do I write about the writing prowess of LA prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (with a little help from Curt Gentry), or do I focus on the psychotic nature of its subject? I’m going to go with…

The Manson Family, a cult of hippies in the late 1960s. Everybody knows the story: In the summer of 1969, members of the Family murdered seven people over two nights in what is now referred to as the Tate-LaBianca murders. Everybody involved with Manson at the time was damaged. That’s my official diagnosis. From Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, Mary Brunner, and Charles Watson to the rest living with Manson on his roaming communes, each one was searching for something. It might have been acceptance, love, or themselves. Whatever they were looking for, they found it with somebody possibly more damaged than themselves.

Charles Manson’s childhood, when taken by itself, is heartbreaking. An absent father, a mother more interested in men than her little boy, bouncing in and out of institutions. He makes a compelling case for the nature vs. nurture debate, and one must wonder if he would have been so desperate for acceptance if he’d had a different upbringing. As a writer, the Manson character makes for a good template to create a character from.

His behavior during the trial wavers on outlandish, and if I’d seen it in a book I’d probably feel it was forced by the writer. But, seeing that a real psychopath can unhinge and react like that under pressure should alleviate the concerns of many writers feeling they’ve written a character that acts out of character from time to time. We don’t see how Manson acted 100 percent of the time while with his Family, so we don’t know if this is just a one-time response to the trial, or a recurring trait. If this were fiction, I’d like to have seen a glimpse of that side of him at some point earlier in the story. It’s a telling side: a petulant child not getting his way. I think that harkens back to his childhood, which was more or less robbed form him by his mother. I would love to see a more in-depth analysis of Manson’s behavior (delivered in an interesting way… I don’t want to read a psychiatrist’s report).

There's an incredible amount of symbolism in this book, especially as it refers to the Beetles, but there's also a cold, real-world truth to it. Manson was out for petty revenge. Whether it was to recover money from a loan or to right the perceived wrongs of the world, Manson was as much thug as psycho.

This is the second book I’ve “read” as an audio book, and it was a conscious decision to do so. I bought the hardcover book (more about that below), but the more I thought about it, the more I felt this story needed to be told to me, out loud, to get through the forensics, police procedures and courtroom drama. And I felt it worked really well in that format. I have the hardcover to refer back to, and I’ll probably use it for reference, even if some of the material is dated (as far as investigative technology and procedures go). What isn’t dated is the way the human psyche bends under the will of charismatic persons, especially when both parties are damaged.

As an interesting note, I bought my hardcover copy second hand, and when I cracked it open, there was an address label belonging to the previous owner. Because it was so girly and flowery, I decided to look them up to see what kind of person would read a book like this, and tag it with such a pretty sticker. Eerily enough, this book belonged to a 92 year old woman who died in a house fire, and the book came from her estate.

There’s no evidence the book is haunted at this time. But that’s another RIG, and one I’ve done already.