Manson in His Own Words [Paperback]

The myth of Charles Manson is not likely to survive the impact of his own words, Nuel Emmons writes in the introduction toManson In His Own Words, the shocking true confessions that lay bare the life and mind of the cult leader and notorious criminal. 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 Great Depression to an unmarried fifteen-year-old, Manson lived through a succession of changing homes and substitute parents, until his mother finally asked the state authorities to assume his care when he wastwelve. 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. Mansons 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.

Compulsively readable . . . Manson cant ever succeed in being paroled out of that cell, not as long as people with any sense at all can read this book.William S. Burroughs

Nuel Emmons (1927-2002) first met Charles Manson briefly when he was imprisoned for auto theft in 1956, and again under similar circumstances in 1960. After that, Mr. Emmons began a career as a photojournalist, and he has contributed to a number of magazines both in the United States and Europe. In 1979, he ls!