Sway

by Zachary Lazar

Three dramatic and emblematic stories intertwine in Zachary Lazar's extraordinary new novel, SWAY--the early days of the Rolling Stones, including the romantic triangle of Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg, and Keith Richards; the life of avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger; and the community of Charles Manson and his followers. Lazar illuminates an hour in American history when rapture found its roots in idolatrous figures and led to unprovoked and inexplicable violence. Connecting all the stories in this novel is Bobby Beausoleil, a beautiful California boy who appeared in an Anger film and eventually joined the Manson "family." With great artistry, Lazar weaves scenes from these real lives together into a true but heightened reality, making superstars human, giving demons reality, and restoring mythic events to the scale of daily life.

Genres: Fiction, Music, Historical Fiction, Novels, Book Club, The United States Of America, Pop Culture

255 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[D. Pow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zachary Lazar’s Sway is a damned fine novel. It takes on a lot of big themes, tackles most of them well and delivers the whole thing in a kaleidoscopic, time-shifting narrative voice that perfectly fits the frayed, fucked up edges of the more than slightly sociopathic scene that it covers(the drug saturated, cum-stained, rock n roll drenched 60’s).

The novel follows three strand of characters, Kenneth Anger, queer occultist and underground filmmaker; Bobby" Beausoleil budding rock star and actor, object of Anger’s lust and later henchman to that most fucked up of all 60’s characters, mad, bad Charlie Manson; and last but not least Her Satanic majesties themselves: The Rolling Stones.

Lazar gets many things exactly right. He knows how the difference between mere musicians and Icons like The Stones exists in an specific but undefined geography between intent dedication to craft until your fingers bleed, and a strange, nearly numinous, alchemy that takes place when something old becomes wholly new through something close to inspiration. In this case the songwriting craft of Jagger and Richards transforming old blues forms, and the lost blonde moppet Jones further moving them towards genius with his odd penchant for picking up any insrtrument, no matter how obscure and adding some baroque brush stroke to the strange limey blues his band-mates had created. In the chapters with Beausoleil you also see the journey of a talented musician who instead of rising into greatness, falls into utter depravity, murder and psychic enslavement to another failed musician, Manson. Anger’s journey interwines with both Beausoleil’s and the Stones and in his delving into the occult and in the Stones dip shit excursions there is well, you get a pale echo, a smaller version of Beausoleil’s wrestling and falling into evil. Anger might be some sort of mage but you are never sure if he is benvolent, wicked or just wholly full of shit.

I was aware of all of these characters before I read the book, but Lazar created a whole world here that was unique but real and added to my layer of understanding of Anger, The Stones and The Manson Family Murders. He is a good writer, with better than average style and he showed mucho cajones taking on as many themes and telling the story through the eyes of such well-known protaganists. Recommended for underground film buffs, homosexual occultists, true crime fans and Stones fans. Fuck, I betcha even the Glimmer Twins and Uncle Charlie would like it.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sway is one of those novels that gets underneath your skin – and not in a good way. Zachary Lazar has chosen quite a crew through which to filter his dark story of the sixties: Bobby Beausoleil (Manson family member), the Rolling Stones (the main ones anyway), and underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger. If you like Don DeLillo, you should like Sway. I’m not a big fan of DeLillo, but I found Sway to be an impressive feat of integrating historical facts and figures into a work of fiction. DeLillo, when he’s on his game, is a master at this. Unfortunately, in a big sprawling novel like Underworld, DeLillo has plenty of space to be both on and off his game. In contrast, Sway has a much tighter focus, with a cast (and by extension, a culture) of characters whose embrace of darkness and chaos, all fits under the black umbrella of Death.

Interestingly, the real ringmaster for all of this is not the obvious Manson (who pretty much stays on the periphery of the story), or even the sympathetic toward the Devil Stones. It’s Kenneth Anger. Whatever you want to say about this extremely strange man, he knows what he’s about. I actually went and watched a number of his films on YouTube. I found them all to be disturbing, but in a way that’s hard to finger. There’s no real story to these films. Instead, it’s all about establishing mood through image, image distortion, symbols (satanic stuff, Nazi, leather, motorcycles, pentagrams, clowns, the moon, Egyptian gods and goddesses doing a lot of pointing, and at least one flying saucer), and weird music. Even a short movie on Mickey Mouse has the quick insert from a film by Hitchcock ("Strangers on a Train") showing a Merry-Go-Round becoming unmoored. This guy is about chaos. Lazar understands this thoroughly, and it’s probably why the Anger portions of the novel are the best realized – and the most unsettling.

The Stones portions are also good. If you are a Rolling Stones fan, get ready to be disillusioned. Actually, if you are a long time fan, like me, you've probably already heard or read a number of stories related to their earlier days. Lazar however fleshes some these stories out. There’s something a bit unnerving about Brian Jones wearing a necklace with human teeth, or Mick constantly changing masks to meet the moment, or the Stones in general getting stoned and practicing on their instruments, while an Anger film runs continuously on the wall. If you play with fire, enough, hey…

Bobby Beausoleil gets the lightest treatment, but he does provide linkage (and Sway is all about links and echoes) by being a killing tool for Manson, and a lover, actor, and musician for Anger – who actually seems to care for him. Manson and Anger may be worlds apart in temperament (it’s hard to imagine Anger actually hurting someone), but they do embrace, quite willingly, darkness, because for them that’s the way the world is. The Stones also embrace the darkness (paint it black!), but unlike Manson and Anger, they actually think they can control it, make it a part of their career trajectory. Altamont proves otherwise, as Jagger’s playing at being the Devil runs into the reality of Hell’s Angels doing what they want (beating, killing) in front of the stage.

Lazar is not just a passive chronicler of all of this. In his own controlled way he inserts authorial judgments. Early on in the novel (around 1962), as the Stones are starting to get traction, Lazar’s disgust with the shallowness of the elevation of the Self (something by the way Anger admires as a Satanic doctrine) is pretty apparent:

“A kind of culture has started to evolve. Everyone under thirty has decided that they’re an exception – a musician, a runaway, an artist, a star. There are no more wars to fight, no more ration coupons, nothing to do but study graphic design or live in Paris for a month busking in the Metro. They have no experience of fear, or violence, or patriotism, or duty. What they have instead is an obsession with style, a collage of half-understood influences from other times and places. It is a language of pure connotation.”

Strong stuff. One could make an argument that beneath the surface of Sway’s post-modern fragmentation, lie the concerns of a moralist. Evidence is replete throughout the novel, through example after example, but there’s one stunning tableau toward the end of the book which I felt bracketed the above passage. It involves concertgoers going toward Altamont, close on the heels of the Manson murders, to see the Stones in the now infamous concert:

“Nobody knew what to think about the story, whether it was to be believed. Nobody could explain the strange glamour of it, why the killers were fascinating while their victims were hardly even real. It had already been a day and a half of wine and Quaaludes, seizures by the medicine tent, fist fights, barking dogs, but it was possible not to look at any of that if you didn't want to look at it. Some of them broke out into fits of dancing and singing, buoyed by the bright, sunny day. There was a procession of people in flowers and beads who pushed a colorfully painted cart through the crowd, its spoked wheels as high as their shoulders. Inside the bed was a blue cow made of paper-mache, like something from India. In spite of everything they knew about the band, in spite of everything the band embodied, the crowd was thinking about Woodstock, the glow of having been there. They all wanted this to be something like that, and they were already a little frantic, wanting a good spot, not wanting to miss out.”

Again, strong stuff. Paint that cow gold and what have you got? And Mick is no Moses – just the opposite. Lazar’s imagery is deliberate and devastating, since he’s established a foundation of excess and chaos through the stories and events of each of his characters. Sway is a fine novel, and probably a needed antidote for the syrupy nostalgia of the Beatles movie Across the Universe. I liked that movie, but Sway will hang with me longer, go deeper with what it has to say.

Update: After reflection, I went from 4 to 5 stars. It's Rock & Roll, and I liked it.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The next best thing after the early love and peace 60's is the down & decadent end of the era 60's. "Sway" conveys the marriage of Charles Manson, The Rolling Stones, and the genius filmmaker Kenneth Anger. This 'novel' captures the moment where everything came to head. The surprising thing about this novel is how it works as a work of fiction.

As far as I can tell, the story line is based on non-fiction accounts from various books, but the author, Lazar, captures the series of moments that reads the era going through a bad and dark mood. The book is a must for the Brian Jones obsessive as well as one who is interested in the social world of Kenneth Anger.

i am not sure if the author is a fan of the Stones or Anger, or is attracted to the loose connection between the three parties. But what is interesting is that he is focused on the mythology of the times, and in a sense that is the great part of the narrative.

[fleegan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. Honest. I mean, the Rolling Stones, Manson Family, 1960s... what's not to like? But the whole time I was reading it I kept thinking about how the book, while you can tell the author did tons of research, was still just fiction. And not only that, but if you think about it it's fanfiction. Rolling Stones/Manson family fanfiction? Really?

And all the parts (of which were many. most, even.) with Kenneth Anger made me really hate the book. I didn't like him. I dunno if that's what the author was going for or not, but he just seemed like a parasite. And all the homosexual stuff was just way too often. I mean, "we get it, he wanted to suck off all the guys. That's great. Can we move on? Because I'm moving on." Is all I'm saying.

The idea behind the story is fascinating, I think, but the book just doesn't work. It's too slow, or too gay, or too forcing with the occult hooha all the damn time. And the ending was disappointing all, "wow. that was intense. but we lived through it and now we're all old and not even friends anymore. oh well."

So if you see this book around, read the jacket cover cos you'll be all, "hmm. that's interesting." but then put the book down and walk away.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm torn between four and five stars for this. But I figure any book which I have recommended to people more than twice is a book that deserves a five star rating. A book about the convergence of the Venn circles, between the early Rolling Stones, Kenneth Anger and Bobby Beausoliel (for those of you not rabid followers of cult-murder books, was one of the Manson killers). What I liked especially was the extremely heated, claustrophobic world of Anger, and how everything he came across 'meant' something--very very Sixties--but more than that, I loved Lazar's sensitive insights into the delicate balance of power that created the Rolling Stones, the relationships between the three principals, not only on a psycho/social level but also on the musical level, in a way that a non-musician could understand. The tipping point as Keith Richards came into himself adn Brian Jones was going down, how they worked together musically, who Brian was to Keith and Mick. For this alone I've already recommended it to four people. It reminded me oddly a bit of Mary Gaitskill's Veronica--especially in terms of trying to capture what music meant to people at that time, something that just wouldn't be as valid in our over-exposed, over- entertained, blase world today.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The three intertwining stories that feature in "Sway” are all topics that interest me: the early days of the Rolling Stones, up to Altamont; the life of avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger; and Bobby Beausoleil, the musician who was briefly, and decisively, aligned to the Manson Family.

I enjoy books that take real people and real events and use them as the basis of a reimagining. When, as here in "Sway”, the book is well written, thoroughly researched, imaginative, and offers insights into an era, then it makes for a compelling and engrossing read.

That said, Zachary Lazar slavishly follows the well worn narrative that Altamont and the Manson Family murders signalled the death of 1960s idealism and served as a metaphor for the entire era. For such an accomplished and imaginative book I would have hoped for a bit more of a nuanced or original interpretation of these events, not just a rehash of an overly familiar, and lazy, narrative.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was fascinated by this book. I grew up 8 miles from Cheltenham and Brian Jones was our only local pop star of (inter)national fame. (Although a friend of mine from there was lead guitarist in Motorhead for a while in the 80s). Recently I went to my aunt's funeral and got out of the car next to a grave strewn with fag packets and plectrums and messages - Brian Jones's of course. So I was a sucker for this which charts his downfall from the leader of the band to his death in a swimming pool 7 years later. That's one strand, there are two others - mainly Kenneth Anger's childhood/growing up and film-making, and Bobby Beausoliel one of Anger's actors and later one of the Manson gang. Anger also filmed the Stones so that's how the whole is connected.

So a potent, dark brew and well written, with some fine set pieces - eg the Altamont concert. Unfortuantely haven't got the book with me so can't give quotes, but there's much that is memorable - in Marrakesh as Anita Pallenberg discards Brian and moves on to Keef, Brian, drugged as usual, starts to hallucinate hooves pounding from within the walls. Later there's a scene with Keef and Anita joking about their baby (send him out to work, heavy work etc). (In fact I think there should be more humour, particularly as they're a British 60s band, it's all a bit too solemn).

It takes liberties with the facts, but it's a novel so that's allowed. What I wasn't convinced by were the connections Lazar makes - a bit feeble really. There was no Satanic plot invoked by Anger, and encouraged by the Stones (singing Sympathy for the Devil etc). It was all just halfhearted dabbling in the 'dark side', albeit with terrible consequences for the Manson victims, and the bloke at Altamont. (Maybe this is partly the point Lazar is making).

Sorry my reviewing brain is rusty after two weeks off, I'll get better I promise.

So, probably worth more than three stars, but not 4 to me. Best read smoking a joint and with pre 1970 Stones on your iPod.

-------------------

got the book now, here's a cherishable moment, Brian taking Anita to meet the parents, outside the home:

..his blond hair cut in bangs like hers, their long fur coats falling almost to their ankles. They had gotten high in the back of the limousine, and there was an intensity of recognition he hadn't counted on: the evergreen shrub inisde the iron gate, the white wooden box with its empty milk bottles. He held a cellophane-wrapped gift basket from Harrods behind his back.

His mother answereed the door, smiling at him, a little breathless. "Come in," she said. "I was just getting everything ready."

In the living room, the windows were covered in lace curtains and framed by heavy , wine-coloured drapes. There was an electric fire, two dressers displaying plates and books. His father slowly closed his newspaper above his crossed legs, then folded it into his lap, clearing his throat. Already there was the vague hesitation, the swirl of fear and goodwill.

He put the gift on the floor and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Mum," he said, taking her hand. "This is Anita."

Jokingly, he held the two women's hands in his own, as if to join them in marriage. Beneath her coat Anita wore a paisley minidress. Gold earrings hung just above the ridges of her collarbones and her eyes were outlined in black kohl. She seemed to grow taller and thinner as his mother appraised her.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well-written, vivid novel about the sixties, centering around Kenneth Anger, The Rolling Stones, and the Manson murders. I felt like there was sort of a momentum problem, maybe just one that's inherent to historical novels -- you know where things are going and so you're sort of just waiting for Altamont and aren't in too much of a hurry to get there. The result, for me, was that it took me awhile to get through this book: it wasn't a page turner and I wasn't in a huge rush to get through it.

That said, the writing is excellent and while I actually had it open I was very much under its spell. The familiar characters and their era were described in a new way that felt fresh and very convincing. I can't say with authority that Lazar describes these figures and events accurately, since I never personally hung around doing drugs with the Stones in Marrakech, but now I feel like I have which speaks highly of him as a writer.

Not gonna bother book-reviewing this one properly, and why should I when Donald's already done a much better job than I could? Instead, I'll just recommend his review:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

In conclusion, this book confirmed my suspicion that I'm lucky to have missed the sixties, since Sway is about some of the coolest stuff going on then and it all sounds completely awful.

[R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Did you ever wake up to find a day that broke up your mind and destroyed your notion of circular time?" - "Sway" (Sticky Fingers), Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

***

Opens with Charles Manson and Bobby Beausoleil breaking and entering into a suburban house. An incredibly boring scene that, even spiced up with some zombie sex (kinda) flashbacks, is incredibly tedious.

***

The Rolling Stones early years are painted in every color (including black; a roiling, greasy black) and, wow. This is where the book straps the stratocaster on you and pushes you out onstage.

***

Next comes Kenneth Anger; (went to youtube and watched Anger's "Invocation of My Demon Brother", an experimental, uh, anti-war film that for all its eerie-evil albino creepery and Hotel California-Satanic trappings I clicked out of at about the three minute mark. The point is obvious: Anger just wanted to pan and scan over some prettyboy dude's shadowy junk and call it art. With a soundtrack by Mick Jagger.)

[Bill Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few years back, I read this fictionalized version of the entwined stories of the Rolling Stones, Kenneth Anger, and Bobby Beausoleil, from Laurel Canyon to Altamont by way of Brian Jones’ swimming pool. Some readers have (justly) called it fan fiction, but I think maybe it’s more like folklore, a storyteller’s version of things that happened to near-supernatural creatures. That or a middle-budget, slightly cheesy Netflix documentary.

I reread it over the weekend because I couldn't remember a thing about it, except the real events that comprise the story, nothing about the shabby characterizations, the audacious guesstimates at what Mick Jagger is thinking, or the gratuitous era markers. If I'm lucky, I'll forget again.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3 1/2 stars, really.)Very cool to use the Kenneth Anger and his films as a metaphor for the turbulance of the late '60's. I've read some reviews that lump this book in with other 'flower power' screeds, to which I would disagree. This book explores the disturbing underside of the decade of love: the Western fascination with the occult, Manson and his followers, the Hell's Angels and Altamont, and the Stones rocky road to fame. This is a work of fiction but while reading, it's hard to differ facts from Lazar's creative license.

[Page · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book terrible - don't read.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

what the fuck was that?

[Steve Dewey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing diversion that attempts to connect the occult, death, and the later hippie culture. The novel centres around the Rolling Stones, the film maker and occultist Kenneth Anger, and Charles Manson disciple Bobby Beausoleil, and attempts to meld together the early anger of the Stones, the dissolution of 60s youth like Beausoleil, and the death of the hippie dream, using Anger as a device that connects those worlds.

The power of the novel lies in the descriptions of the mess that appeared to be the early, young, Rolling Stones, and, to an extent in the description of the development of Kenneth Anger.
Where it is weakest is in connecting all this somehow with Manson, and with death. Thanatomania (obsession with one's own death) might be a theme that Anger is working out, and Mick and Keith might have written a song called "Sympathy for the Devil", yet the connections remain flimsy. I don't feel that the conjunction of these elements, these people, is drawing me towards the inevitable murders by The Family, nor towards Altamont.

The book lacks tension, given its subject matter. For somebody of my generation (70s freak rather than 60s hippie), the stories of Brian Jones, the Family and Altamont are well-known, thus there is no element of surprise to the novel. What it provides instead is atmosphere, a kind of overarching view of a particular 60s weltanschauung.

It is, however, well-written, and well-researched. When it talks about the Stones, or about Anger, there is a feeling of verisimilitude. There are also nice turns of phrase that arrested my attention. It's not essential, however, and it doesn't really tell me anything new about the era, or explain why the peace and love movement ended in death. Yet, for those interested in such things, it is worth a read.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reimagining of the early stones, Kenneth anger and the Manson murders culminating in altamont ! Fictional but I seem to now have a better understanding of them and that end if a decade zeitgeist ! Well researched but doesn’t have to be convincing as is a novel ! Not sure if that was the relationship of Brian Jones and the rest of them !

[Dominique Aguilera · Rating 3 out of 5]

My own answers to the questions & topics for discussion provided in this edition:

1. From the Rolling Stones and Bobby Beausoleil to the eerie soundtracks of Kenneth Anger’s films, music is central to Sway. What does music from the 60s signify to you? What does it signify to the novel’s principal characters? Discuss the different implications music has for the Stones, Anger, and Beausoleil.

I think the music from that time period was becoming very experimental and psychedelic - thanks to the drugs that were being taken by musicians themselves. Just listen to the difference between "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles. I've never heard the music by Anger or Beausoleil, but grew up listening to the Stones - as this novel shows, the English band started off mainly singing blues and folk covers, and it wasn't until they started playing original songs that they began creating their own signature sound.

2. Sway follows three individual stories that eventually converge. Discuss the points of convergence and the events leading up to them. In what ways are the novel’s characters and their experiences in the three separate stories similar? Do you think one storyline is the most representative of the 1960s?

The first connection I noticed was how both Anger and Pallenberg, at different points in time, individually read from The Sephiroth; the novel also begins with Beausoleil and Charles Manson, and later on, Anger sees on the news that Beausoleil - his former collaborator - has been involved with the Manson murders. Also, the fact that the Stones, along with Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull, eventually collaborated with Anger.
A similarity between these three storylines would be simply showing the dark side of the very-much glamorized 1960s.
I would find the Stones' story most representive, since, not only are they the main focus, but in reality, they've become one of the most influential bands in history.

3. How do you define masculinity and femininity? Discuss the manifestations of each in the novel, especially with regard to the Rolling Stones, Bobby Beausoleil, and Kenneth Anger. Discuss the role that gender plays in the characters’ private lives and in their performances.
Both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards seemed to be sporting androgyny by the late '60s and into the '70s - also a paragraph telling us about Richards being bullied as a child for looking like a girl. Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg matched their clothing and had similar hairstyles when they were dating - to the point where they looked like siblings. Jones would also steal and wear his ex-girlfriends' clothing, and Richards would wear some of Pallenberg's wardrobe.
One of Anger's films is described as having a woman with short hair and man wearing make-up.

4. Both the group and the individual figure prominently in Sway, most notably with the Manson family commune and loner Kenneth Anger. Compare the motivations and ideals of each. How does the author use them to critique both individuality and collectivity?

Anger just wanted to make films with Beausoleil, an aspiring musician. When Beausoleil joined the Manson Family, he gets to know its leader, Charles, also an aspiring musician - and with more control and darker intentions. Anger had a brief, sexual relationship with Beausoleil, but the latter had his own will to leave; whereas Bobby's interaction with Charles in the beginning of the novel gives us the impression that Charles has the power to control his follower as he pleases.

5. Anita Pallenberg can be considered a muse to the Rolling Stones in 1968 and 1969. In Sway, how did her forceful personality both inspire and mature them, despite her romantic inconsistency? How is her character further revealed during her late encounter with Kenneth Anger?

While it's said that Mick didn't like her at first, he soon sees how she's made herself the center of the band. At the end, Anita, while remaining good friends with Anger, reminds him that he once called her a "self-absorbed b*tch" - probably showing that she hasn't lost her confronting personality 40 years later.

6. The Sephiroth appears at various points in the novel. Discuss its main tenants. Why is it important to the characters and how does it relate to the novel as a whole?

Both Kenneth and Anita have a fascination with the occult, and happen to read from the same book, and eventually happen to meet and become good friends. The Sephiroth's topics of dream & reality fits into the narrative overall.

7. In many ways, the Rolling Stones’ vacation in Marrakech is comparable to the extremes of Kenneth Anger’s films. How does this trip alter the lives of the band members, particularly Brian Jones? What role does hallucination play in both their lives and their art?

I don't know how to compare Kenneth's movies to the Stones' vacation, but I do know that this was quite a turning point for Brian Jones: his paranoia not only gets the better of him, but he becomes physical abusive towards Anita, and delves deeper into drugs to the point where he can't even perform properly anymore, or seem to care to. He loses Anita (who runs off with Keith, now a former best friend) in the process. I guess Kenneth's imagery is meant to look like a hallucinogenic trip akin to Jones's experience?

8. Lucifer is normally thought of as a symbol of evil and darkness. How is he transformed in Sway into a bearer of light? What are some of the many, perhaps conflicting permutations of Lucifer in the novel? Discuss the role Lucifer plays in “Sympathy for the Devil” and An Invocation of My Demon Brother.

As mentioned in the book, Kenneth intends to depict Lucifer as a bearer of light into his films. Then, with "Sympathy for the Devil," there's a line in the song which says, "I shouted out, 'Who killed the Kennedys? / When, after all, it was you and me" - this depiction is meant to be the titular Devil bragging of all the wrongdoings that he's been present for in history, while blaming it on mankind.

9. The 1960s have been mythologized and idealized as stories have been passed from one generation to another. Identify some of these generalizations. Discuss your own preconceptions of the era. How were they reinforced or transformed by Sway?

One of the reasons this era has been idealized would have to be, not just for the music, but the fashion. We think it was such an easy and innocent time, until you do further research - maybe by even watching Mad Men and seeing the historically-accurate sexism and adultery. I, too, used to think that the '50s and '60s were a wonderful time, until I was constantly reminded of all the hardships. I appreciate Sway for not shying away from that darkness, and how they affected the characters.

10. All of the characters in the novel succumb to the sway of someone or something. Why are they swept up? In what ways are they influenced and what are some of the consequences of their actions “under the influence”? Do you think their impressionability is a comment on the decade as a whole?

Yes, I do think that it was meant to be a comment on the decade, hence why it was written in the first place. Bobby Beausoleil is charmed by Charles Manson; Kenneth Anger was attracted to Beausoleil; Brian Jones was possessive over Anita Pallenberg; Keith Richards fell in love with Pallenberg, who may have also seduced Mick Jagger (someone who used to dislike her).

[Jessicap Prokop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sway by Zachary Lazar is the complete opposite of what the 60’s stood for. Lazar shows an extreme view of this era; how there is a darker side to peace, love and drugs. Beneath the rock and roll and psychedelics Sway shows the malevolence and neurosis between 1967 and 1969. Lazar weaves a tale grounded with facts of how the lives of Brian Jones, The Rolling Stones, Charles Manson, and Kenneth Anger intertwined.

Every character is under the “sway” of something. Thrown into fame, the star crossed musicians of the Rolling Stones sway under a balancing act of music and drugs. While Brian Jones is under the sway of anger, abuse and drugs leaving him less focused on his music and detached from the band. Kenneth Anger is under the sway of darkness, the occult, worship of men and creating movies. And then there is Bobby Beausoleil who is under the sway of the ideologies and delusions of Charles Manson. As the paths of the characters cross this sway leads to anarchy within a generation.

The novel doesn’t fully come to life as Lazar cannot fully develop the characters in the hundred or so pages. The depths and layers of each individual which are not touched upon in Sway are truly necessary to show the impact each had on the epoch. Upon reflection, I found it hard to decipher between reality and fiction. I felt like a groupie in the band, privileged to peek into the intimate moments, jam sessions and drug binges, or a hippie living in Haight-Ashbury under the trance of Anger and Manson.

However, Lazar does a wonderful job of intertwining devils with angels. Each character is depicted from a taboo/occult angle. Every character is battling some demon which is reflected in their work and actions. Yet none of the characters are portrayed as demons, not even Mason or Beausoleil. However, in the end it is obvious that they all have sympathy for the devil.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a child of the sixties. Heck, I’m barely even a child of the seventies. But even still, I couldn't help but be fascinated with Zachary Lazar’s Sway - a engrossing novel dealing with the intersection of three 60’s icons: Charles Manson, The Rolling Stones, and occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger (Invocation of my Demon Brother, Scorpio Rising). Despite using factual people, Sway is clearly a work of fiction; despite being a novel, it reads more like a series of character studies; and rather than romanticizing the 1960s, Lazar uses motifs of Satanism, drug culture, homoerotica and violence to approach the oft romanticized decade from a much darker angle. With three protagonists: Kenneth Anger – a experimental filmmaker who often found inspiration in Satanism and the occult, Bobby Beausoleil - a handsome, young musician, actor and eventual murderous member of the Manson clan, and Brian Jones – founder of the Rolling Stones who was later spurned by the group before drowning in his own swimming pool at age 27; Lazar weaves together three stories that not only intersect, but also darkly echo one another. I’m not particularly a fan of the Rolling Stones, I know next to nothing about Anger, and I’m only mildly interested in the infamous Manson clan, so I suspect a lot of Lazar’s more minor references and plot details were lost on me, but it was a highly engaging read even still. I felt that the back half of the novel dragged a bit so I can’t say that I absolutely loved Sway, but I ended with a deep appreciation for both Lazar’s story and the artful approach he took to telling it.

[Spiros · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it's just that I have been too steeped in the Stones of late, what with Keith's autobiography and Nick Kent's memoir, which is very Stones informed, and my readings of Stanley Booth's True Adventures of the Rolling Stones: most of the Stones' related themes in this book felt kind of warmed over for me. The whole Marrakesh chapters, in which Lazar is most reliant on his own invention, even felt heavily lifted from Brion Gysin. The writing is effective enough, but the nexus between Anger's Crowley inflected Satanism (Luciferism?), Manson's vile lunacy, and the debacle at Altamont, feel a bit sketchy. The whole novel has an attenuated quality about it, as though it is an outline of a larger, more involved project. Although I will say that it did keep the titular Stones' song, especially Charlie's uncharacteristically agressive drumming in Keith's absence, playing on the jukebox I keep in my head.
Effectively, the whole of this novel, absent the Manson sub-plot, can be summed up here: a Youtube video of a blasted Marianne Faithful stumbling around in an excerpt of Anger's "Lucifer Rising" with the Stone's "Sway" as soundtrack, which I can't seem to format here.

Here it is:
https://youtu.be/1Xk8ZLU6bYM

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the intertwined story of avant garde film maker Kenneth Anger, the Rolling Stones and Bobby Beausoleil, later convicted for his part in the Manson murders. It is not a biography and does not claim to be, so read it as a novel and try not to spot the historical errors, especially in the parts about the Stones. Where the novel is a great success is in the escalating problems which lead to the violence of Altamont and the Manson murders which heralded the end of the idealism of the Sixties.

Kenneth Anger is the person who unites the story of the Stones and Bobby, as he was involved with both of them. We see the power struggle between Brian Jones and the rest of the band; the triangle between Brian, his then girlfriend Anita and Keith Richards, the drug busts and endless stoned conversations, the casual violence and Brian's increasingly out of control behaviour. The sense of unease we feel when Manson breaks into a random house with Bobby 'for practice', leaving him wondering, 'practice for what?' and, overall, the sense of violence everywhere. This is not a comfortable read, but it is very interesting and would give a book club lots to discuss.

[Heather Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this almost a year ago, but I just realized how much Sway has stayed with me. I read constantly, so a book has to be truly outstanding to remain in my consciousness as much as this one has. I don't usually love fictional accounts of true events, but this one was just off-kilter enough to imagine as an alternate timeline or mass hallucination rather than an invented encyclopedia entry. Although I'm fairly well-versed in anything about the Manson family and Rolling Stones, I knew almost nothing about Kenneth Anger, and I enjoyed experiencing [a fictional version of] his fascinating mind.

[Rupert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kenneth Anger, wild and woolly Manson and the early Stones, what's not to like? But I couldn't shake the feeling that Lazar was cheating. He does a rough summary of three interesting, historically intense groups of people and throws in a few fictional red herrings when he feels like it. I would have liked and respected the book more if he'd taken the themes and put them into an entirely fictional world with these folks as a jumping off point or just dug deeper and made it more non-fiction. As it is, I think it stays two dimensional, but with some nice writing within.

[Kdevoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was pretty creepy. I lived through the days portrayed in this book - the Manson murders and the rise of the Rolling Stones -- and I really didnt care for the way the author juxtaposed the 2 and made them seem like 2 sides of the same coin ... if that's what he was trying to do. Also sometimes the writing was very vague and "out there" - I suppose it was trying to capture the era, but a few times I found myself re-reading a sentence and saying, "huh?"

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The manner in which the stories are interwoven is engrossing, capturing what it must have been like to ride the wave of the sixties as it was crashed into the violence at the end of the decade. Seeking more to capture the aura than to tell a coherent narrative, Lazar portrays how that violence wasn't simply a reactionary response to the sixties ethos, but also a product of its most hedonistic impulses.

[Patrick Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed somewhat. Maybe I just couldn't disconnect from what I already knew about the real-life stories that intersect between these covers.

[Fredsky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hey, you! This was NEVER your cloud!!!

[Oriana]

I'm kind of a sucker for this kind of hippie shit.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a dark side to the 60s and this is where Sway digs in. It weaves three stories about real people into one:

Kenneth Anger, a visionary filmmaker, falls in love with Bobby Beausoleil and later makes a movie about the Rolling Stones

Bobby Beausoleil, a musician who started The Grass Roots and scored Anger's films, who later meets Charles Manson, becoming a family member and committing murder

The Rolling Stones--specifically, Mick, Keith, Brian, and the women between them, Anita and Marianne Faithful

Anger, Beausoleil, and the Stones all embodied a seething disgust with the as-is. The "peace and love" of the 60s constantly slipped their grasp. As Vietnam raged, so did they. Their drugs were an escape, not a tool for enlightenment. Behind it all, was a single-minded focus on their art.

Plus, Lazar writes the best descriptions of Mick Jagger's stage presence I think I've ever read: "A quick spasm that jerks his head upright and carries out into his back-stretched arms. A pause before he rights himself, turning his head and clapping, a sideways glance at no one, guarding his space."

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at an Oxfam shop because it looked like Rolling Stones meets Charles Manson fanfiction. It turned out to be just that. It also features a lot of underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger and other figures from the 60s. I was fascinated just how fanfiction-y it got, including more than just a little homoeroticism.

I liked the writing style, although I found it a little overwritten at times (metaphors that, when you think about them for one moment, don't actually make any sense at all). I'm also not a big fan of novels that are so fragmented, with so many characters that never fully come together. I enjoyed the Rolling Stones parts the most. Although they were bizarre at points, they were very atmospheric and will stay with me. They also made me want to read more non-fiction about the band. I'm a big fan of 60s and 70s rock but I never really got into the Rolling Stones apart from a few songs, so there were times where I wondered how much was fact and what was fiction.

Overall, an uneven novel that could have done with more story, less fragmentation and few less 5 Dollar words. But I'd be interested in reading more by the author.

[Sharon Falduto]

The Manson murders, the Rolling Stones, and the death of the 1960s feature in this fictionalization that uses real people as its characters. Instead of the usual suspects of these groups, though we focus on people like the Stones' Brian Jones--the founder of the group, but the one who's not Keith Richards or Mick Jagger, and also of course the one who wound up dead in the pool under suspicious circumstances. For the Manson family we focus on Bobby Beausoleil, who was one of the killers, but not the notorious ones like Susan Atkins or Leslie Van Houten. I thought the Rolling Stones were an interesting choice, since of course the Manson family is usually more associated with the Beatles, but the author wanted to show the hard edge of the 1960s, and the Stones--especially the deadly Altamont concert--capture that spirit more. It got a bit over the top sometimes with its maudlin, but I think that was in homage to the end of the 1960s, when it must have truly felt as if the world were about to end.