It’s been 50 years since that terrifying night in August 1969, when four members of the Manson Family broke into the house at 10050 Cielo Drive and killed five people: 18-year-old Steven Parent, who was there to try to selling a clock radio for an acquaintance in the property’s guest house; Wojiciech Frykowski, aspiring screenwriter and friend of director Roman Polanski; Abigail Folger, Frykowski’s girlfriend and heiress to the Folger coffee fortune; celebrity stylist jay sebring; and actress Sharon Tate, Polanski’s wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time of his brutal murder. The following night, members of the Manson Family continued their brutal murders with the murders of Leno Labianca, a well-to-do grocery store owner, and his wife Rosemary, stabbing them dozens of times and writing “Healter [sic] Skelter” in blood. on the wall.
what became known as the tate/labianca murders stunned hollywood, and the country, with the public wondering what could have led the killers to commit such a gruesome crime and many celebrities wondering if they would be next . Months later, the arrests of family members and the group’s leader, Charles Manson, raised more questions than answers. why were these houses attacked? what did they hope to achieve with the murders?
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While prosecutors successfully argued that Manson had brainwashed his followers into committing the murders as part of an attempt to incite a race war, the mysteries surrounding the Manson Family murders persist to this day. today, inspiring countless movies, documentaries and books that try to get to the heart of the question: how could one man have so much power over his followers that they would be driven to kill for him? And was he responsible for ordering the murders in the first place?
With the July 26 release of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, a new generation of armchair detectives is now dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the Manson case. If Wikipedia and podcasts aren’t enough to satiate your obsession, here are the 9 best books on the Manson Murders, from the classics to lesser-known works that explore the cultural context of the Manson Family and its aftermath.
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Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi (1974) This 1974 account of the Manson murders by the man who prosecuted them is not only considered the granddaddy of the Manson Family canon, it is also one of the best-selling true crime books of all time. More importantly, it is the main source of the accepted narrative behind the Manson murders: namely, that a crazed cult leader was obsessed with the Beatles’ white album and wanted to scare those who had betrayed him, primarily, Terry Melcher, a record producer who had refused to give Manson a record deal and who previously occupied 10050 Cielo Drive. so he convinced his brainwashed followers to carry out the murders by telling them that the crimes would fuel a global race war and that they would inherit the earth. As the chief prosecutor in the case, Bugliosi is far from an impartial source, and as other journalists investigating the case have pointed out, there are numerous inconsistencies and gaps in the narrative. however, helter skelter remains to this day an essential resource for anyone interested in the case.
Chaos: Charles Manson, The CIA, And The Secret History Of The Sixties, By Tom O’Neill With Dan Piepenbring (2019) What began as a premiere magazine article assigned to o ‘neill nearly 20 years ago, mayhem is less a straightforward account of the manson murders than a fascinating, fast-paced, and sometimes frustrating series of all the alternative theories surrounding the case, from the suggestion that the murders may have been the result of a drug deal. Soured the theory that Manson participated in CIA-sponsored mind control experiments with LSD. while such theories are by no means proven and vary wildly in terms of their credibility, o’neill does an excellent job of poking holes in the messy narrative (not to mention the reliability of bugliosi, who died in 2015) and forcing the readers. to reassess what had already been seen as the definitive version of the case.
Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guinn (2014) Considered the definitive account of Manson’s own life, Manson is most notable for Guinn’s interviews with members of Manson’s family, including his sister and cousin, neither of whom had been interviewed before. The book sheds light on Manson’s extremely troubled childhood (he was a juvenile delinquent hopping from reform school to reform school and reported being raped multiple times by older students). While it doesn’t conclusively identify the origins of Manson’s evil, a feat that would be impossible, it does make him a fully three-dimensional figure, a major departure from previous efforts that depict him as a cold-blooded, crazed killer.
Family Member: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Within His Cult, and the Darkness that Ended the Sixties, by Dianne Lake (2017) If you ever wanted to know how It was meant to be a member of the Manson Family, this memoir by Dianne Lake, a teenage runaway who joined the family at age 14 and testified against her former leader at trial three years later, is a gripping, at times intensely disturbing, tale. , of his psychological manipulation at the hands of Manson. does an excellent job of conveying the drug-fueled orgiastic spirit of the ’60s, when it wasn’t uncommon for disaffected young women to wander away from home to try and find themselves, only to end up being stalked by older men who took advantage of of them. the message of the era of free love. It also provides insight into what may have attracted so many young women to Manson, a small, wiry, wild-haired man who was not known for his conventional sex appeal but cultivated an air of mystique that young women found irresistible.
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the family, by ed sanders (1971) based on hundreds of interviews, the family is arguably more thoroughly researched, though not as restricted, as helter skelter: it is replete with rumors and urban legends, not only about the family but about the victims themselves, many of which could be seen by modern readers as victim-blamers. but for those who just can’t get enough of more details about the case, the family is a source of information, even if not all of it is well-documented or even that valuable.
manson in his own words: the shocking confessions of ‘the most dangerous man alive’ by charles manson and nuel emmons (1988) whatever your thoughts on charles manson: was he a psychopath or a puppet? ? A calculating swindler or a raving lunatic? – It’s hard to deny that he did a great job keeping journalists on their toes. Manson, who died in 2017, prone to ranting for hours and full of koans, could go from utter incomprehensibility to eloquence on a dime. Eamons, who had grown up in California, had met Manson while they were both incarcerated in the state. but by 1979 he was a photojournalist, and he decided to approach his old acquaintance. The culmination of eight years of correspondence between Manson and Emmons, Manson In His Own Words is neither unbiased (after all, presented entirely from Manson’s perspective) nor always understandable. however, it brings Manson to life in ways that a standard true-crime investigation simply could not.
The Manson Women & Me: Monsters, Morality, and Murder, by Nikki Meredith (2018) While much of the Manson canon focuses on the man himself, the loyal followers who carried out his Heinous instructions are also a big part of the story, particularly the women, who were often loaned by Manson to visitors to the Spahn Ranch for sex. In The Manson Women and Me, journalist Nikki Meredith interviews two of the women left behind for their role in the murders—Leslie van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel—and attempts to answer a question that has haunted many fans of the case: How do two relatively normal middle-class girls become cold-blooded killers, to the extent that they didn’t repent even when they were tried for their crimes? Meredith doesn’t pretend to answer this question, but she does show remarkable empathy for her subjects as she weaves together other case studies of brainwashing and groupthink to attempt to explain, if not justify, her actions.
The Girls by Emma Cline (2017) Although this award-winning book is a work of fiction, and not a hard-boiled true-crime tome in the traditional sense, Cline’s languid and seductively sinister tale about a young woman drawn to a manson-style commune is an invaluable companion to the other entries on this list. not only does it attempt to address the perennial question of how such privileged young women can so quickly slip into a life of brutal sex, drugs, and crime, but it also uses the heady, bacchanalian spirit of the 1960s as a metaphor for youth. femininity in general. Through her dreamy, evocative language, Cline posits that the drug-fueled angst, unbridled sexual energy, and anti-establishment spirit that created the conditions for the Manson Family are also, in many ways, synonymous with the condition of being a teenager. , beautifully depicting how young women can feel so powerful and so powerless at the same time.
Restless Souls: The Tale of Sharon Tate Family Stardom, the Manson Murders, and a Crusade for Justice, by Alisa Statman with Brie Tate (2012) When talking about the Manson, often the most important people are the ones who are completely left out of the narrative: the victims and their families. After the brutal murder of Sharon Tate, members of the Tate family tirelessly sought justice, and Sharon’s mother Doris became one of the most visible and prominent advocates for victims’ rights before her death in 1992. Written by Alisa Statman, a friend of the Tate family, and Brie Tate, Sharon’s niece’s daughter, Restless Souls is far from an objective account of the Manson murders, but it does provide an intimate insight into how the Tate family coped. to the trauma of her loss, as well as a look at Tate herself, who by all accounts was a sweet and enthusiastic young woman whose light went out too soon.
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