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The Family
In August of 1969, during two bloody evenings of paranoid, psychedelic savagery, Charles Manson and his dystopic communal family helped to wreck the dreams of the Love Generation. At least nine people were murdered, among them Sharon Tate, the young, beautiful, pregnant, actress and wife of Roman Polanski. Ed Sanders' unnerving and detailed look at the horror dealt by Manson and his followers is a classic of the true-crime genre. The Family was originally published in 1971 and remains the most meticulously researched account of the most notorious murders of the 1960s. Using firsthand accounts from some of the family's infamous members, including the wizard himself, Sanders examines not only the origins and legacy of Manson and his family, but also the mysteries that persist. Completely revised and updated, this edition features 25 harrowing black and white photos from the investigation. "One of the best-researched, best-written, thoroughly-constructed, and eminently significant books of our times…. A masterpiece."—Boston Phoenix
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
118 people are currently reading
5512 people want to read
About the author
Ed Sanders
141 books80 followersEd Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.
Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting against nuclear proliferation in 1961.
In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore (147 Avenue A in what was then the Lower East Side), which became a gathering place for bohemians and radicals.
Sanders graduated from New York University in 1964, with a degree in Classics. In 1965, he founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984.
In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He obtained access to the Manson Family by posing as a "Satanic guru-maniac and dope-trapped psychopath."
As of 2006, Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York where he publishes the Woodstock Journal with his wife of over 36 years, the writer and painter Miriam R. Sanders. He also invents musical instruments including the Talking Tie, the microtonal Microlyre and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting against nuclear proliferation in 1961.
In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore (147 Avenue A in what was then the Lower East Side), which became a gathering place for bohemians and radicals.
Sanders graduated from New York University in 1964, with a degree in Classics. In 1965, he founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984.
In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He obtained access to the Manson Family by posing as a "Satanic guru-maniac and dope-trapped psychopath."
As of 2006, Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York where he publishes the Woodstock Journal with his wife of over 36 years, the writer and painter Miriam R. Sanders. He also invents musical instruments including the Talking Tie, the microtonal Microlyre and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews
June 21, 2011
Sanders has the information. Being an expert is the only reason he could get away with this total turd of a book. His writing alternates between unengaging and annoying, bogged down with over-worded sentences and his horrible hippie slang. On top of that you get his constant stabs at being clever. For instance, he'll say something like 'Manson and some other Caucasians' did something or other. It's, of course, superfluous to mention that since Manson was a white supremacist and the other Caucasians were already named and described earlier, he's just trying really hard to write. Here's another gem, "She gave Linda Kasabian some Zu-Zu's-Mansons term for candy-which Linda put in her pocket". Is this stupid hippie being literal here or is he using slang to describe slang? Not to have "bad energy" but when this "human" writes this way it's really a "bummer". How about this one-"Charles, the smug, musuclar boy from Copeville, had them trapped in his own phoneless hamburger universe." Trust me, it makes no more sense in context. He also seems to feel that it's necessary give every single detail of what happened in the most mundane of moments-"at 12:30 AM Garretson gave Parent a can of Budweiser beer". Find another book on the subject. I wish I had.
September 2, 2008
this book is awesome in a teenage boy who's really into death metal and smokes pot all day kind of way. also, if you're into group dynamics, the occult, California as alternate universe, or really amazing hippie slang.
January 25, 2012
I found this book at some used bookstore and gave it to my roommate, known for his interest in the bizarre. Then, months later, wanting something lighter than another reworked, Cambridge-published dissertation to read, I asked him for some recommendations. This book came up and was sitting on the dining room table the next day for my delectation.
I first heard of Ed Sanders early in high school when the local "fine arts station" played music by his band, The Fugs, on their Saturday night program, "The Midnight Special." The Fugs were outrageously countercultural and quite possibly were the first "rock" band I actually liked. I was fifteen. My appreciation of rock music snowballed soon thereafter.
I suppose I heard about Charlie Manson back around the time of the Tate-Bianca murders. Stories of murders have never interested me very much, so I paid little attention to the news of the crimes or of the trials. Polanski, however, was of some interest. Several of his films, particularly "MacBeth" and "Cul de Sac", impressed me quite a bit. Sharon Tate was familiar to me from the movie she had done with Patty Duke, a pretty bad one, and the silly one she'd done with Polanski, "The Fearless Vampire Killers"--so bad that we turned of the tv maybe half and hour into the thing.
Since those days Manson, still alive, still in jail, has become a cultural icon. I saw a horrible film made back in the seventies about the murders which had been re-released by Troma, then the more recent, big-budget film "Helter Skelter". All of this was enough to get me to agree recently to watch a documentary, a long one, on the Web about Manson while visiting a friend in the suburbs.
The documentary was mostly an interview with Manson, conducted twenty or so years ago, interspersed with commentary and film clips of the various places associated with him and his group, "the Family." Among other things it made the point that Manson had not in fact been present at the murders I associated him with--at least he had not been proven to be present. He, in the interviews, claimed innocence.
This, the discovery that I'd misapprehended the affair, got me interested enough to do some digging. It began with looking into the Manson-sympathetic documentary. That turned out to have been produced by a self-styled Satanist--not an impressive credential in my book. It led to me reading this book.
Sanders' The Family was written just as the relevant trials were starting and, so, is in no way definitive. It is, however, informative, its author having performed many interviews of persons associated with the murdered and their murderers, interviews that other, more "straight" researchers probably could never have obtained. The writing style dates it, but not distractively so. The period slang and turns of phrase may actually lend it a note of authenticity. There being so many characters in the story, many of them with many aliases, that an index would have been useful. So, too, would have been photographs. Fortunately, two maps are provided.
Manson seems, from Sanders' portrait, the very soul of sociopathology. As such, he's almost understandable. What isn't so accessible, to me at least, is the nature of his following, especially the girls (and girls they were, most of them teens). Manson demeaned females, yet his most devoted followers were female.
Along the way one encounters whole sets of other weird grouplets such as The Church of Scientology, The Process, The Order of the Golden Dawn and others, the phenomenology of such cultish groups being a subtheme of the book. These also strike me as mysterious. As Sanders tells it, there's little reason behind such apparent madness as evinced by Manson's Family and these other dark cults.
All in all, Sanders' book pretty much just skims the surface of the events and personalities he describes, raising more questions than he answers. Given that he published while the trials were still on-going, this shallowness may be excused. Hopefully his research has contributed to more recent, and deeper, studies.
I first heard of Ed Sanders early in high school when the local "fine arts station" played music by his band, The Fugs, on their Saturday night program, "The Midnight Special." The Fugs were outrageously countercultural and quite possibly were the first "rock" band I actually liked. I was fifteen. My appreciation of rock music snowballed soon thereafter.
I suppose I heard about Charlie Manson back around the time of the Tate-Bianca murders. Stories of murders have never interested me very much, so I paid little attention to the news of the crimes or of the trials. Polanski, however, was of some interest. Several of his films, particularly "MacBeth" and "Cul de Sac", impressed me quite a bit. Sharon Tate was familiar to me from the movie she had done with Patty Duke, a pretty bad one, and the silly one she'd done with Polanski, "The Fearless Vampire Killers"--so bad that we turned of the tv maybe half and hour into the thing.
Since those days Manson, still alive, still in jail, has become a cultural icon. I saw a horrible film made back in the seventies about the murders which had been re-released by Troma, then the more recent, big-budget film "Helter Skelter". All of this was enough to get me to agree recently to watch a documentary, a long one, on the Web about Manson while visiting a friend in the suburbs.
The documentary was mostly an interview with Manson, conducted twenty or so years ago, interspersed with commentary and film clips of the various places associated with him and his group, "the Family." Among other things it made the point that Manson had not in fact been present at the murders I associated him with--at least he had not been proven to be present. He, in the interviews, claimed innocence.
This, the discovery that I'd misapprehended the affair, got me interested enough to do some digging. It began with looking into the Manson-sympathetic documentary. That turned out to have been produced by a self-styled Satanist--not an impressive credential in my book. It led to me reading this book.
Sanders' The Family was written just as the relevant trials were starting and, so, is in no way definitive. It is, however, informative, its author having performed many interviews of persons associated with the murdered and their murderers, interviews that other, more "straight" researchers probably could never have obtained. The writing style dates it, but not distractively so. The period slang and turns of phrase may actually lend it a note of authenticity. There being so many characters in the story, many of them with many aliases, that an index would have been useful. So, too, would have been photographs. Fortunately, two maps are provided.
Manson seems, from Sanders' portrait, the very soul of sociopathology. As such, he's almost understandable. What isn't so accessible, to me at least, is the nature of his following, especially the girls (and girls they were, most of them teens). Manson demeaned females, yet his most devoted followers were female.
Along the way one encounters whole sets of other weird grouplets such as The Church of Scientology, The Process, The Order of the Golden Dawn and others, the phenomenology of such cultish groups being a subtheme of the book. These also strike me as mysterious. As Sanders tells it, there's little reason behind such apparent madness as evinced by Manson's Family and these other dark cults.
All in all, Sanders' book pretty much just skims the surface of the events and personalities he describes, raising more questions than he answers. Given that he published while the trials were still on-going, this shallowness may be excused. Hopefully his research has contributed to more recent, and deeper, studies.
February 12, 2010
I can only describe this book as "uneven." This book was painful to read at some times (and not because of the content, although that was squirm-inducing, too) but was easy to read at other times. There were times I couldn't put the book down, then other times when I couldn't read a page without nodding off.
Sanders is a talented writer, and came up with some great pieces of slang that had a sort of Beat-vibe to them, befitting a man who ran around California in the late 60s as a poet and a musician. However, Sanders could have really benefited from some serious face-time with an editorial red pen. Many facts were printed in duplicate and triplicate, which added to the already-immense flood of information he packed into the book. Several passages read like he put every single detail from depositions and police reports into the book. As someone who regularly writes stories based on police reports, I know how tempting it is, but I also know that more often than not, you'll lose the point of your story in the details if you aren't selective about what is included.
If properly edited, the book could have been at least 50 pages shorter, and probably even shorter.
Now, the content itself was fascinating. I don't really buy into the myth of the 60s as a time of peace and free-love and good music and all that. You take a bunch of runaway kids and mix them up with a ton of drugs, and you have a culture that is just ripe for exploitation, which is exactly what happened. One of the ways those kids were exploited was through all of these "gurus" that appeared, promising to lead them to a higher plane of existence. Manson was one of those gurus, and he preached a particularly repellent version of a higher plane existence that involved race war and complete subjugation of women to men, along with vegetarianism and group sex. It was really interesting - and a bit scary - to see how a bunch of seemingly normal people could end up so entranced by one dude that they would be willing to abandon their families, commit crimes and even brutally murder people for him. It wasn't just the eight or nine people who ended up in jail, but hundreds of people who moved in and out of the family over the course of a few years.
I also like the procedural details about the criminal investigation and the trial, but that's just my thing. I can see how others would find it boring.
Ultimately I'd say that anyone who was really fascinated by the Manson family might want to read this but if you aren't, you'll find it boring.
Sanders is a talented writer, and came up with some great pieces of slang that had a sort of Beat-vibe to them, befitting a man who ran around California in the late 60s as a poet and a musician. However, Sanders could have really benefited from some serious face-time with an editorial red pen. Many facts were printed in duplicate and triplicate, which added to the already-immense flood of information he packed into the book. Several passages read like he put every single detail from depositions and police reports into the book. As someone who regularly writes stories based on police reports, I know how tempting it is, but I also know that more often than not, you'll lose the point of your story in the details if you aren't selective about what is included.
If properly edited, the book could have been at least 50 pages shorter, and probably even shorter.
Now, the content itself was fascinating. I don't really buy into the myth of the 60s as a time of peace and free-love and good music and all that. You take a bunch of runaway kids and mix them up with a ton of drugs, and you have a culture that is just ripe for exploitation, which is exactly what happened. One of the ways those kids were exploited was through all of these "gurus" that appeared, promising to lead them to a higher plane of existence. Manson was one of those gurus, and he preached a particularly repellent version of a higher plane existence that involved race war and complete subjugation of women to men, along with vegetarianism and group sex. It was really interesting - and a bit scary - to see how a bunch of seemingly normal people could end up so entranced by one dude that they would be willing to abandon their families, commit crimes and even brutally murder people for him. It wasn't just the eight or nine people who ended up in jail, but hundreds of people who moved in and out of the family over the course of a few years.
I also like the procedural details about the criminal investigation and the trial, but that's just my thing. I can see how others would find it boring.
Ultimately I'd say that anyone who was really fascinated by the Manson family might want to read this but if you aren't, you'll find it boring.
July 18, 2016
The Family (published 2002) fka The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion by Ed Sanders (E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc. 1971) (301.4494) is a must-read for anyone interested in the Manson Family. This book is sort of the flip-side of Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter. Bugliosi's book is generally thought of as the definitive story on the family and the murders (horrible ritual slayings in LA in 1969) by the "Manson Family," an acid-drenched cult of personality made up largely (but not exclusively) of runaway teenaged girls led by a thirty-two year old life-long convict, con-man and pimp named Charles Manson. Manson was on the streets for the first time in ten years after his recent release from prison. Can one truly fathom Charlie Manson's frame of reference? He walked into prison in the Frank Sinatra era B.E. ("Before Elvis") and walked out into San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in its hippie heyday. Whereas Helter Skelter presents the 1960's "establishment" view of the Manson Family as the boogeymen, Ed Sander's The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion is the "street version" of Manson from the hippie viewpoint and is filled with rumor, innuendo, and supposition which make this tale a juicy delight. My rating: 7.5/10, finished 5/13/13.
To my astonishment, I purchased an updated edition of this book; it was published in 2002 and includes an entire section to update what happened between 1971 (original publication date) and 2002 (Updated edition) from McKay's for $2.00 on 6/30/16. (Updated 7/17/16)
To my astonishment, I purchased an updated edition of this book; it was published in 2002 and includes an entire section to update what happened between 1971 (original publication date) and 2002 (Updated edition) from McKay's for $2.00 on 6/30/16. (Updated 7/17/16)
January 11, 2008
Ed Sanders (ex-Fug, leader of the counterculture, circa '67, according to Life magazine) should be commended for the kitchen sink approach he takes to his subject. He includes every unanswered question, rumor and crackpot conspiracy theory related to Manson, his accomplices and their crimes. He ties both Manson and the Tate-LaBianca victims to a celebrity studded "sado-maso club run out of Mama Cass's house," infamous for ritually torturing a drug dealer who ripped them off. He does his best to illuminate shadowy satanic cults supposedly wandering the California coast at the time. He even includes a hand written note from Manson accusing the author of being a long-time CIA agent.
This material is more fascinating and "out there" than typical true crime fare. Unfortunately, Sanders stumbles beneath the weight of organizing it all. He frequently repeats incidents and anecdotes at multiple points in the book, obscuring any linear narrative. His excessive alliteration and cutesy catch-phrases (he actually writes out "oo-ee-oo" at the end of every paragraph containing suitably "creepy" details) also get grating at times. At 500 plus pages, The Family reads more like a jumbled police file than a well edited piece of investigative journalism.
This material is more fascinating and "out there" than typical true crime fare. Unfortunately, Sanders stumbles beneath the weight of organizing it all. He frequently repeats incidents and anecdotes at multiple points in the book, obscuring any linear narrative. His excessive alliteration and cutesy catch-phrases (he actually writes out "oo-ee-oo" at the end of every paragraph containing suitably "creepy" details) also get grating at times. At 500 plus pages, The Family reads more like a jumbled police file than a well edited piece of investigative journalism.
January 10, 2008
Another paperback pilfered from my mother. Bugliosi's HELTER SKELTER is a more authoritative book, but for the pure feel of how freaky the world felt in 69/70, Sanders' voice is quintessential. There's a sarcasm to the style that makes the narrative much more disturbing than the true-life crime accounts. When I thumbed through this not long ago, I happened upon such a bizarre passage about the relationship between Charlie and a minister named Moorehouse who basically pimped his 14-year old over to the Family in return for a hummer (from Charlie!) that I went to Google to try to find out whatever happened to the guy. I was shocked to discover that many Family members are out there, still alive and in varying stages of Mansonmania. Very disturbing.
June 8, 2023
For my two hits of orange sunshine, still the best book on the Manson murders. Written while some of the accused were still on trial, Sanders' viewpoint is immersed in the weird swamp of dark occultism that was LA in the 60s. Full of unspeakable rumor and names that can't be spoken, THE FAMILY reads more like a crime thriller than a case study and the tone perfectly suits the acid craziness of the subject.
Someone really needs to write a comprehensive, multi-volume account of California's psycho hippy magic days. Until they do, this is a great primer.
Someone really needs to write a comprehensive, multi-volume account of California's psycho hippy magic days. Until they do, this is a great primer.
August 26, 2016
Understanding the Manson Family (if that's possible) requires a lot more than an examination of the events. To really "get" it, a person has to put themselves in the context of the era in which the family grew, devolved, and then entered infamy as murderers. No book on the Manson saga does this better than Ed Sanders' The Family.
Sanders' research was done as an insider. As such, much, if not most, of the information in the book is not cited in any kind of serious, academic or even journalistic way. For that reason (among others), I definitely think it should be read in conjunction with Bugliosi's Helter Skelter and Guinn's Manson (both fantastic books). However, I don't think a view on the topic is complete without at least one read of Sanders' The Family.
Sanders captures the madness of the time in which all of this happened. It is evident not only in the fringe groups of weirdos and "sleaze inputs" that he exposes, but in his very writing. People who are hating on this book because of its use of slang are simply overlooking a beautiful aspect of it, which is how much it mirrors the culturally revolutionary flavor of the time it all went down in. Sanders himself was part of the counterculture. He writes like it. No mainstream release of this kind could be pulled off today with the stylized, colorful, irreverent writing that Sanders used. In that way, it is truly a time capsule.
A surface understanding of the Manson Family horrors states that it was just some crazy, charismatic leaders and a group of burnout losers who went on a thrill kill over some halfcocked Helter Skelter plan. But, the whole thing gestated for a long time in the belly of the 60s, which were a time when many, many people were looking to overthrow systems of all kinds, from religious to psychic to political.
Manson was a kind of guru to some of the biggest names in the music industry at that time. To many others, he was a sort of sage or, at least, an interesting far out mystic with some real "Truth" to dole out. The guy nearly went mainstream. The whole thing illuminates the true madness of the time.
For me, that madness is precisely the main point of interest in studying the Manson Family. Along with Altamont, they became a tuning fork resonating with all the dark energies hiding behind the flowers and dayglo of the hippie era.
Sanders' book is perhaps a bit more difficult to read than the other Manson books because it makes so much use of the lingo of its time. But, if one looks at it as an immersive experience in the era, then that lingo becomes one of the best aspects of the entire book.
In short, I loved this book.
Sanders' research was done as an insider. As such, much, if not most, of the information in the book is not cited in any kind of serious, academic or even journalistic way. For that reason (among others), I definitely think it should be read in conjunction with Bugliosi's Helter Skelter and Guinn's Manson (both fantastic books). However, I don't think a view on the topic is complete without at least one read of Sanders' The Family.
Sanders captures the madness of the time in which all of this happened. It is evident not only in the fringe groups of weirdos and "sleaze inputs" that he exposes, but in his very writing. People who are hating on this book because of its use of slang are simply overlooking a beautiful aspect of it, which is how much it mirrors the culturally revolutionary flavor of the time it all went down in. Sanders himself was part of the counterculture. He writes like it. No mainstream release of this kind could be pulled off today with the stylized, colorful, irreverent writing that Sanders used. In that way, it is truly a time capsule.
A surface understanding of the Manson Family horrors states that it was just some crazy, charismatic leaders and a group of burnout losers who went on a thrill kill over some halfcocked Helter Skelter plan. But, the whole thing gestated for a long time in the belly of the 60s, which were a time when many, many people were looking to overthrow systems of all kinds, from religious to psychic to political.
Manson was a kind of guru to some of the biggest names in the music industry at that time. To many others, he was a sort of sage or, at least, an interesting far out mystic with some real "Truth" to dole out. The guy nearly went mainstream. The whole thing illuminates the true madness of the time.
For me, that madness is precisely the main point of interest in studying the Manson Family. Along with Altamont, they became a tuning fork resonating with all the dark energies hiding behind the flowers and dayglo of the hippie era.
Sanders' book is perhaps a bit more difficult to read than the other Manson books because it makes so much use of the lingo of its time. But, if one looks at it as an immersive experience in the era, then that lingo becomes one of the best aspects of the entire book.
In short, I loved this book.
February 21, 2008
The book to end all books on Manson, written with great humor, sadness, horror, and--of course--poetry by a counter-culture icon from Independence, Missouri, the founder of the Fugs, and publisher of much wonderful verse, Ed Sanders. Blows HELTER SKELTER out of the water with both hands tied behind his back, with ten times the insight. Meticulously researched--and Sanders had access to (what he would call) creepy-crawly portals to the hippie netherworld Bugliosi didn't even know about. A great, great, great read and re-read.
P. S. No attempts to excuse Manson, by the way--Sanders, you can tell, is pretty hacked off (so to speak) that Charlie was essential to the collapse of the Sixties left.
P. S. No attempts to excuse Manson, by the way--Sanders, you can tell, is pretty hacked off (so to speak) that Charlie was essential to the collapse of the Sixties left.
December 23, 2016
I was seventeen and living in L.A. when the Manson murders happened, so revisiting this book which I read back then was a walk down memory lane (or Reseda Boulevard). Sanders has a unique style, almost ESL, which takes us into the evil empire of Charles Manson. It is discouraging how many young women were lured into his cult, as well as many young men. Recently, the novel "The Girls" went over the same bloody ground, but in a rather superficial way that minimized the evil that these lost souls perpetrated. This account is perhaps most valuable in its analysis of all the ideas that were floating around at that time, biker gangs, distopic science fiction, beatle lyrics. It's reassuring to know that Manson remains in jail, unlikely to be paroled any time soon.
May 4, 2024
I found this biography fairly compelling, but I've since realized that no book about Manson is telling the whole truth. We only have fragments here and there in which people are either selectively lying, or they don't know what really happened. Some stories are told as myths the first time around, and in these cases the real story disappears in favor of the myth. I think that's what happened here with Manson; the few people who know the real secrets will never tell. It's a solid book nonetheless, and one of the most honest I've read.
April 3, 2008
My brother and I both loved this book......we inherited an obsession of famous killers from our mom...morbid huh? We find them fascinating though.....how they can do what they do and what makes them do what they do......
July 31, 2011
This is a great book for me to read now that I'm living in Los Angeles and it's the best book on the Manson fam. Sanders unravels this grim tale and manages to pull a lot of humour out of his investigation.
June 10, 2017
Fast-buck Manson book by some sort of hippie journalist. Full of gory details and written in a fast, breezy style, but clearly not the work of a professional.
May 7, 2009
My introduction to Ed Sanders was “The Illiad”, from his Sander’s Truckstop LP. Man, that’s a funny song. Anyway, knowing a little about the guy and having listened to some Fugs here and there, I thought a Manson book by the guy would have to be good.
It is. Sanders recounts the tale of the Family in such a way that the real horror of their actions is underlined sharply yet without melodrama. I don’t think I’ve read Bugliosi’s book but I would imagine, coming from an attorney, it’s pretty cut and dried. Sanders uses hilarious turns of phrase, some borrowed from Manson and friends, to discuss and examine Manson and his followers. And downright make fun of them. There were actually parts that were laugh out loud funny. Rather than trivialize Manson’s sick little games, Sanders irony makes it seem all the more horrid. It may be that, because Sanders was all about free sex, the downfall of straight society, etc. that he was the best person to write a book about Manson.
OO-ee-oo.
It is. Sanders recounts the tale of the Family in such a way that the real horror of their actions is underlined sharply yet without melodrama. I don’t think I’ve read Bugliosi’s book but I would imagine, coming from an attorney, it’s pretty cut and dried. Sanders uses hilarious turns of phrase, some borrowed from Manson and friends, to discuss and examine Manson and his followers. And downright make fun of them. There were actually parts that were laugh out loud funny. Rather than trivialize Manson’s sick little games, Sanders irony makes it seem all the more horrid. It may be that, because Sanders was all about free sex, the downfall of straight society, etc. that he was the best person to write a book about Manson.
OO-ee-oo.
Read
November 6, 2010The Family may be the most poorly-written book I have ever read. (Stephenie Meyer, you are redeemed!) Ed Sanders takes great pains in the introduction to tell the reader exactly how much research he did in compiling the book. He interviewed hundreds of people! He took innumerable notes!
Unfortunately, what Sanders apparently failed to do was shape these notes into a readable narrative. The book careens haphazardly from one topic to another – and much of what is described relates only loosely the Manson Family. Even for someone familiar with the Manson Family story, it’s extremely difficult to follow what’s happening.
I should also point out that my (1970s-era, library) copy of the book features a (manipulated) picture of Charles Manson, wearing a red velvet jacket, with amputated hands (...AMPUTATED HANDS).
I suspect everyone involved in the production of this book – from Ed Sanders to the guy who designed the cover image – was very, very high at the time. I suppose if you, too, are very, very high, you might wrench some enjoyment out of it. Otherwise… no.
Unfortunately, what Sanders apparently failed to do was shape these notes into a readable narrative. The book careens haphazardly from one topic to another – and much of what is described relates only loosely the Manson Family. Even for someone familiar with the Manson Family story, it’s extremely difficult to follow what’s happening.
I should also point out that my (1970s-era, library) copy of the book features a (manipulated) picture of Charles Manson, wearing a red velvet jacket, with amputated hands (...AMPUTATED HANDS).
I suspect everyone involved in the production of this book – from Ed Sanders to the guy who designed the cover image – was very, very high at the time. I suppose if you, too, are very, very high, you might wrench some enjoyment out of it. Otherwise… no.
December 20, 2008
Sanders, the founder of avant-folk group the Fugs and the future mayor of Woodstock, N.Y., wrote a cynical hippie's take on Manson. Ironically its much more sober and restrained than prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's take in Helter Skelter.
Sanders not only understood the music and hipster scenes of LA and SF that Manson tried and failed to make it in; he also investigated and documented the truly scary world of LA occultism in the 1960's. The Manson Family was just the most hard-scrabble and violent cult of many. Several including the Process and Scientology were equally sinister if more subtle. Sanders couldn't solve every mystery of the case and he leaves many intriguing threads dangling but answers many other questions.
Sanders not only understood the music and hipster scenes of LA and SF that Manson tried and failed to make it in; he also investigated and documented the truly scary world of LA occultism in the 1960's. The Manson Family was just the most hard-scrabble and violent cult of many. Several including the Process and Scientology were equally sinister if more subtle. Sanders couldn't solve every mystery of the case and he leaves many intriguing threads dangling but answers many other questions.
September 21, 2015
"I did read Bugliosi's Helter Skelter some time ago, so this is the second and decidedly last book I need to read on the subject. If you haven't read any, go with Helter Skelter, this one is written in an almost unreadable kind of spoken narrative prose, with most grammar rules thrown aside, annoying expressions and an enormus amount of errors. The 'unique' revelations of the book are either unbelievable, incoherent, incomplete, uninteresting or all of those. Got the idea to read about Roman Polanski, though, so some good may come of it... "
January 9, 2013
Although this book had a lot of information it seemed to have been written by more than 1 person. The writing style was uneven and at times boring. In my opinion, taking a little extra time to edit and create a smoother flow to the material would have turned this book into a good read instead of ok.
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January 1, 2015Nope. I enjoyed Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi when I read it years ago but this was poorly written. I hated Ed Sanders writing style. He kept writing the most ridiculous things. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you want to read everything to do with the Manson murders.
June 26, 2018
Troppo lungo, dispersivo e scritto male, non trovo aggettivo migliore.
Se riesci ad annoiare quando scrivi un libro su un argomento simile, c'è decisamente qualcosa che non va.
Se riesci ad annoiare quando scrivi un libro su un argomento simile, c'è decisamente qualcosa che non va.
December 31, 2020
So this book is kind of weird. Which makes sense, since it's about the Manson Family, but it's also weird in other ways. The first part of the book (more than half) is a colloquially written history of the Family, up to and including the Tate-LaBianca murders, and is very good. Better than Bugliosi, who really doesn't WANT to try to understand the Family. But when it gets to the trials, Sanders himself becomes a person in the book instead of just a narrative voice, and I found that I didn't like him very much. He name-drops. He reminds you constantly of his counter-culture credentials, just how hip and happening a dude he is. And while I'm perfectly willing to be interested in an author's encounters with their subject, this was more a memoir of Sanders' experience of covering the Manson-Van Houten-Atkins-Krenwinkel trial, including all kinds of tangents, with which I became especially impatient when he got off onto the pornography tapes (of famous people) that may or may not have been in the Cielo Drive house the night Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent were killed. Sanders turns into a conspiracy theory chaser---he never actually finds a single tape, only talks to people who have talked to people who claim to have seen them. The only time he gets as close as talking to someone who claims to have actually seen the tapes themselves those persons (a.) are talking about tapes of the Manson Family, not the star-studded pornography (the various tapes tend to get conflated in Sanders' account), (b.) are woefully unreliable and untrustworthy and (c.) never produce the goods. I found it both not quite believable and a powerful waste of time. I was quite surprised when Sanders did not buy into the conspiracy theory that says the Family killed Ronald Hughes (van Houten's attorney), but he is sure---and convincing---that Hughes' death was an awful accident.
So this is an uneven book. (He also scorns Bugliosi's Helter Skelter theory without ever actually finding something to put in its place, only rumors and conspiracies.) When it's good, it's excellent; I do feel like I have a much better idea of how the Family happened. When it's bad, it's pedestrian and annoying.
So this is an uneven book. (He also scorns Bugliosi's Helter Skelter theory without ever actually finding something to put in its place, only rumors and conspiracies.) When it's good, it's excellent; I do feel like I have a much better idea of how the Family happened. When it's bad, it's pedestrian and annoying.
February 12, 2008
I loved the original edition of this book. I had spent some time as a wandering hippie in California and this book captures the feeling amazingly well. The later, revised edition is far inferior to the original. Sanders, older and wiser, tries to be a journalist instead of a storyteller/poet and the book suffers. If you care about the facts read Bugliosi's book, if you want to wallow in the counter-culture this book is for you. The story follows Charlie the parolee as he inserts himself into the hippie-dippy LA Topanga Canyon scene. And went progressively insane, leading his drugged-out zombie followers into perdition. Sander's lyrical language gives a life to the now-forgotten hippie scene in Cali and ties The Family in with other creep-cults (a Sanders term).
August 13, 2014
This book is utter crap written by an acid fried hippie. The book has little cohesion and goes off on long tangents on bullshit cults that may or may not have been associated with the Manson family. Also it mentions a parole hearing Manson had about a stolen car that took place on February 29th, 1959. 1959 was not a leap year. I'm surprised that this book ever got published let alone be considered the most comprehensive book after Helter Skelter on the Manson murders. This book is garbage
June 17, 2008
Boils Manson down to basically a pusher looking to frame other pushers so he could take over the trade. All occult/satan stuff severely downplayed. Couldn't make things less interesting if it tried. But accurate, I guess. Yawn?
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February 6, 2008With Manson's magic sword and dune buggy brigade he led his goon-hippies to the Hole. 1969 must have truly been the strangest time in American history. Ed Sanders gives you a slice of it.
January 23, 2016
Interesting closer look at the inner workings of the Manson family. Really not what I expected at all.
May 11, 2021
“I’ve first heard of Charles Manson and his family, so to speak, around October 20, 1969…”
This is the opening line of The Family written by Ed Sanders, another true crime enthusiast that became obsessed with evil and the nature of some hippies until he lost the grip on his own life. And he wrote a book about it.
The fact that makes this “family” stand out isn’t the murders they did or how Manson asked for blood and some weird teens gave it to him but how they’ve come to be this cult, how the cult was born and how would random people meet one day and decide to listen to that dirty midget. Charles Manson wasn’t an educated man, he wasn’t smart, he was kinda mental as well, he was raised in abuse and even as a young person he was kinda cray cray. Those are the reasons this cult became our history, a pop cultural phenomenon, you can’t remember 1969 just because of the summer of love and Woodstock, because these morons come into play and ruin everything.
I bet all of you guys know the case by heart right now, yea? Me too. But I’ve decided to read this book and review it to see if this makes a difference, if this book is something else, if Ed Sanders shows us how dangerous it is to go in a battle with stupid people, you can’t win, even worse they destroy you, your present and your peace. In fact, here’s a piece of unsolicited advice, if you don’t like someone and you feel they bring only negative energy to your life, DON’T ENGAGE, don’t talk, give evasive answers, don’t give them info from your own life, don’t talk unless they ask something and then just give a Yes or No answer and hope they get the que, if they don’t – do not worry, they will get bored and stop bothering you – this advice applies to everyone.
But Ed Sanders didn’t want to listen to stuff like this so he went head full on and started a personal investigation into the cult of Charles Manson.
You have to imagine that crimes weren’t that common in those decades, not so often murders and disappearances took place like they did in the 2000s. Or maybe they did but the public was more caring, maybe some of them didn’t get the media hype they deserved, people were shocked to the core when a thing like this happened. Anyway, coming from a love point of view where everything is nice and chill and drugs were totally in, having a famous actress who is pregnant with a super famous film director, writer and producer get killed is something unheard of. Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski were the elite, the pop culture back then so of course Charles Manson and his family remain a wow factor to this day. Their viciousness made them stick like the leeches they were.
Definitely this book was a more structured version of the case than Helter Skelter was. I’ve liked it more too. It presented fact after fact after fact and it was smart built. The book sums up the satanism probably still active in the hills of California and it was such a good book.
This is the opening line of The Family written by Ed Sanders, another true crime enthusiast that became obsessed with evil and the nature of some hippies until he lost the grip on his own life. And he wrote a book about it.
The fact that makes this “family” stand out isn’t the murders they did or how Manson asked for blood and some weird teens gave it to him but how they’ve come to be this cult, how the cult was born and how would random people meet one day and decide to listen to that dirty midget. Charles Manson wasn’t an educated man, he wasn’t smart, he was kinda mental as well, he was raised in abuse and even as a young person he was kinda cray cray. Those are the reasons this cult became our history, a pop cultural phenomenon, you can’t remember 1969 just because of the summer of love and Woodstock, because these morons come into play and ruin everything.
I bet all of you guys know the case by heart right now, yea? Me too. But I’ve decided to read this book and review it to see if this makes a difference, if this book is something else, if Ed Sanders shows us how dangerous it is to go in a battle with stupid people, you can’t win, even worse they destroy you, your present and your peace. In fact, here’s a piece of unsolicited advice, if you don’t like someone and you feel they bring only negative energy to your life, DON’T ENGAGE, don’t talk, give evasive answers, don’t give them info from your own life, don’t talk unless they ask something and then just give a Yes or No answer and hope they get the que, if they don’t – do not worry, they will get bored and stop bothering you – this advice applies to everyone.
But Ed Sanders didn’t want to listen to stuff like this so he went head full on and started a personal investigation into the cult of Charles Manson.
You have to imagine that crimes weren’t that common in those decades, not so often murders and disappearances took place like they did in the 2000s. Or maybe they did but the public was more caring, maybe some of them didn’t get the media hype they deserved, people were shocked to the core when a thing like this happened. Anyway, coming from a love point of view where everything is nice and chill and drugs were totally in, having a famous actress who is pregnant with a super famous film director, writer and producer get killed is something unheard of. Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski were the elite, the pop culture back then so of course Charles Manson and his family remain a wow factor to this day. Their viciousness made them stick like the leeches they were.
Definitely this book was a more structured version of the case than Helter Skelter was. I’ve liked it more too. It presented fact after fact after fact and it was smart built. The book sums up the satanism probably still active in the hills of California and it was such a good book.
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