Charles Manson – couldreads

On paper, Emma Cline is the kind of girl I want to punch. A stylish waif with a successful middle-part and piercing blue eyes. The owner of a near-monochromatic wardrobe that’s both simple and defiant in its simplicity. The recipient of a $2 million advance, at the age of 25, for her first book (and two to come), the end result of a bidding war between 12 major publishers. The author of a debut novel whose film rights were snapped up by Scott Rudin before the manuscript even sold. Cline is living a charmed life, a romantic-comedy-set-in-Manhattan kind of life, an I-live-in-a-shed-for-the-novelty-of-it kind of life. I want to find her wherever she’s tapping away on her laptop at twee essays for vaunted literary magazines and punch her right below that middle-part.

There’s only one problem with this plan—several, if you count the unlikelihood of my finding her shed or her even still living in the shed, or my managing to punch anyone in the face, arguably unprovoked, without consequence. The problem is that The Girls, the novel loosely based on the Charles Manson murders, for which Cline received said $2 million advance, is actually quite good. Seamlessly, thoughtfully, annoyingly good. So good I want to punch her in the face anyway for it being so good.

Guys, there are a lot of things I recommend you do in this lifetime—go on a road trip, skydive, eat more than 1,500 calories in a single sitting—but reading the 675-page Helter Skelter in a mere four days is not one of them. That shit will fuck with your head.

I first decided to read Helter Skelter years ago, but for whatever reason—I suppose in part due to its intimidating length—never got around to it. (Editor’s note: Nick, I apologize for “borrowing” your copy of the book for six years.) Then I stumbled across this well-timed Gawker post last week, which itself came on the heels of my having read Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test, and the irony of finishing up a book on the mental state of mass murderers on the 43rd anniversary of one of the most infamous mass murders of all time was too much to overlook: It was Helter Skelter time.

For the unfamiliar, Helter Skelter is the definitive retelling of the events surrounding the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, a two-night spree in which seven people were killed—18-year-old student Steven Parent, screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, hairstylist Jay Sebring, actress (and Roman Polanski’s then-wife) Sharon Tate (who was eight months pregnant), supermarket executive Leno LaBianca, and his wife Rosemary LaBianca. All seven murders were exceedingly brutal, with some victims being stabbed upwards of 40 times. After a historic trial, a jury found Charles Manson guilty of the crimes, along with several other members of The Family, a cult-like commune founded by Manson. The murders were intended to set off “Helter Skelter,” the name Manson had given to what he perceived as an imminent race war between blacks and whites. Why Helter Skelter? Manson took the title from a Beatles song he felt was intended (by the Beatles) to warn listeners of this impending revolution. Because obvi.

Tag: Charles Manson

I’m already mentally casting Emma Cline’s The Girls

My weekend with Charles Manson