Manson in His Own Words
Описание книги
We have called him a devil and quarantined him behind such labels as «the most dangerous man alive.» But Charles Manson remains a shocking reminder of our own humanity gone awry. This astonishing book lays bare the life and the mind of a man whose acts have left us horrified. His story provides an enormous amount of new information about his life and how it led to the Tate-LaBianca murders, and reminds us of the complexity of the human condition. Born in the middle of the Depression to an unmarried fifteen-year-old, Manson lived through a bewildering succession of changing homes and substitute parents, until his mother finally asked the state authorities to assume his care when he was twelve. Regimented and often brutalized in juvenile homes, Manson became immersed in a life of petty theft, pimping, jail terms, and court appearances that culminated in seven years of prison. Released in 1967, he suddenly found himself in the world of hippies and flower children, a world that not only accepted him, but even glorified his anti-establishment values. It was a combination that led, for reasons only Charles Manson can fully explain, to tragedy. Manson's story, distilled from seven years of interviews and examinations of his correspondence, provides sobering insight into the making of a criminal mind, and a fascinating picture of the last years of the sixties. No one who wants to understand that time, and the man who helped to bring it to a horrifying conclusion, can miss reading this book. 
Отрывок из книги
MANSON IN HIS OWN WORDS
PART ONE The Education of an Outlaw
.....
In addition to the publication I was working for, I had made arrangements with UPI to furnish their wire service with some pictures and a release on the interview. My story did not mention that Manson had agreed to furnish me information for a book, but UPI’s release said that I was writing a book on Charles Manson. I immediately began receiving letters about him. Though his crimes had been history for over a decade, Manson still attracted a startling amount of attention and interest. Most of the mail came from the United States, but there were also letters from Canada, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Australia. Many of them offered information for a book about Manson, all such letters suggesting that he be allowed to tell his version of his life and the chain of events that led to the slayings of 1969.
The material for this first-person narrative has been assembled from many interviews, corroborated by his correspondence with me and with others, despite numerous obstacles. Even after Manson had agreed to cooperate, he was not always willing to do so, and I listened to hours upon hours of repetitive complaints about how rotten the prisons and the prison system were. I was allowed the use of a tape recorder only when interviewing Manson for a commissioned article for publication. On such occasions, the institution furnished me with a tape recorder because some years earlier, after an escape attempt at San Quentin, it was believed that an attorney had used his tape recorder to smuggle a gun inside. With the exception of these limited occasions, I had to make mental notes until I could record them on tape or in writing. I spent many hours in the prison parking lot, writing down names and specific phrases that typified Manson’s speech and his ideas. I frequently had to go over events with Manson several times to confirm details and correct the misperceptions created by other accounts. In some cases it was impossible to corroborate Manson’s version of the facts, but the purpose of this book is, above all, to record that version.
.....