Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2013: For more than 40 years, Charles Manson has cast an awful shadow over the Age of Aquarius: an unrepentant murderer synonymous with psychopath in the American lexicon, impossible to ignore or forget. Accordingly, there’s no measuring the volume of ink and celluloid committed to the man, his “family,” and their deeds. So what’s left to be said about Charles Manson? Quite a bit, it turns out. With Manson, Jeff Guinn delves deep into Manson’s “origin story” to reconstruct the wicked combination of events and circumstance that helped make the monster. In prose that’s both economical and compelling--almost hard-boiled--Guinn recounts a troubled upbringing of neglectful, criminal parents and juvenile delinquency, compelling the narrative into the increasingly bizarre landscapes of late-1960s Southern California--a context that turned out to be the perfect accelerant to Manson’s narcissistic delusions. By the time of Helter Skelter and the infamous Manson Family killings, Guinn has aligned the tumblers of Manson’s story and opened a vault of secrets regarding one of the most violent and strange episodes of modern American history. --Jon Foro