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The Family

by Ed Sanders

3.84 · rating details · 372 ratings · 37 reviews

In August of 1969, during two bloody evenings of paranoid, psychedelic savagery, Charles Manson and his dystopic communal family helped to wreck the dreams of the Love Generation. At least nine people were murdered, among them Sharon Tate, the young, beautiful, pregnant, actress and wife of Roman Polanski. Ed Sanders' unnerving and detailed look at the horror dealt by Mans...more

Paperback, 560 pages

Published November 8th 2002 by Da Capo Press (first published 1971)

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Jun 21, 2011

Craven rated it

· review of another edition

Sanders has the information. Being an expert is the only reason he could get away with this total turd of a book. His writing alternates between unengaging and annoying, bogged down with over-worded sentences and his horrible hippie slang. On top of that you get his constant stabs at being clever. For instance, he'll say something like 'Manson and some other Caucasians' did something or other. It's, of course, superfluous to mention that since Manson was a white supremacist and the other Caucasi...more

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May 07, 2009

Justin rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: bios-and-memoirs

My introduction to Ed Sanders was “The Illiad”, from his Sander’s Truckstop LP. Man, that’s a funny song. Anyway, knowing a little about the guy and having listened to some Fugs here and there, I thought a Manson book by the guy would have to be good.

It is. Sanders recounts the tale of the Family in such a way that the real horror of their actions is underlined sharply yet without melodrama. I don’t think I’ve read Bugliosi’s book but I would imagine, coming from an attorney, it’...more

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Dec 19, 2008

Nate rated it

Shelves: crime

Sanders, the founder of avant-folk group the Fugs and the future mayor of Woodstock, N.Y., wrote a cynical hippie's take on Manson. Ironically its much more sober and restrained than prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's take in Helter Skelter.
Sanders not only understood the music and hipster scenes of LA and SF that Manson tried and failed to make it in; he also investigated and documented the truly scary world of LA occultism in the 1960's. The Manson Family was just the most hard-scrabble and ...more

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Jan 09, 2008

Kirk rated it

Shelves: sentimental-faves

Another paperback pilfered from my mother. Bugliosi's HELTER SKELTER is a more authoritative book, but for the pure feel of how freaky the world felt in 69/70, Sanders' voice is quintessential. There's a sarcasm to the style that makes the narrative much more disturbing than the true-life crime accounts. When I thumbed through this not long ago, I happened upon such a bizarre passage about the relationship between Charlie and a minister named Moorehouse who basically pimped his 14-year old over ...more

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Nov 06, 2010

Nicola added it

Shelves: unfinished, crime, non-fiction

The Family may be the most poorly-written book I have ever read. (Stephenie Meyer, you are redeemed!) Ed Sanders takes great pains in the introduction to tell the reader exactly how much research he did in compiling the book. He interviewed hundreds of people! He took innumerable notes!

Unfortunately, what Sanders apparently failed to do was shape these notes into a readable narrative. The book careens haphazardly from one topic to another – and much of what is described relates only lo...more

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Jun 08, 2009

Christopher rated it

I saw a clip of Ed Sanders on some cable documentary about a recent search for potential Manson Family victims out at Barker Ranch. I had read "Helter Skelter", by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, about 20 years earlier and the book scared the crap out of me. I'm not a Manson afficianado or anything, but I knew Ed Sanders as the co-founder of the mid-60s New York group The Fugs and so was drawn to checking out "The Family". What makes the book so worth reading is the very thor...more

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Jan 17, 2010

Jeff rated it

Shelves: documentary-narrative, california-subcult

When I was nine, during the trial, Manson jokes had achieved the critical mass of having their own formula. I remember kids at baseball practice telling jokes that involved the Black Panthers, dune buggies, and race war, and that very much sided with Manson's fantasy of surviving race war with the Panthers by going underneath ground, in a midwestern cave system analogous to Goler Wash and Death Valley.

Ed Sanders got caught up in the hippie countercultural ugliness, and this book is a far

...more

Ed Sanders got caught up in the hippie countercultural ugliness, and this book is a far from negligible document. Is it, as I say below, a classic? Having finished the 2002 revised edition, I'm a little less certain, but really, who cares. It's some sort of documentary masterpiece. Bother with it is, it's the first part that knocks me out, the later parts are repetitive, and once Manson is not roaming the West Coast mountain ranges and pastures, but is locked up, Sanders' fantastic Olsonian expansiveness can no longer act as the pastoral antidote to Manson's ghoulish Pan-in-reverse routine.

There are several editions, and I'm not yet qualified to evaluate them all, and to read through the palimpsest, but suffice to say I wish Sanders would actually again re-read the text and develop an authoritative edition. What he has done is crucial to explaining the religious and cultural pretensions of the Sixties, and his personal, authorial voice in the book -- his ethos -- is worthy of his best work in The Fugs, so this book is a monument. Let's hope some acolyte makes him clean up the editorial glitches, and gets him to build up a layered text that makes sense of his thoughts and second (and fortieth) thoughts.

An earlier remark:

(I won't rate this book yet, as I'm not quite finished and don't want to besmirch Ed Sanders' classic text. This is merely a warning about the Thunder Mouth edition. Soft cover books are made of signatures, eight folded pieces of larger sized paper slipped into one another and then glued to the soft spine of the cover. In this Thunder Mouth edition, every signature came unglued as I read it -- just an astonishingly poorly made thing. A travesty, too, because the inquiry and Sanders' style is -- again -- classic. I've just ordered the 1972 Avon mass market. Is there a Thunder Mouth hardcover? Much of the development is palimsestily written over the 71 version)

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Feb 12, 2010

Caitlin Constantine rated it

I can only describe this book as "uneven." This book was painful to read at some times (and not because of the content, although that was squirm-inducing, too) but was easy to read at other times. There were times I couldn't put the book down, then other times when I couldn't read a page without nodding off.

Sanders is a talented writer, and came up with some great pieces of slang that had a sort of Beat-vibe to them, befitting a man who ran around California in the late ...moreI can only describe this book as "uneven." This book was painful to read at some times (and not because of the content, although that was squirm-inducing, too) but was easy to read at other times. There were times I couldn't put the book down, then other times when I couldn't read a page without nodding off.

Sanders is a talented writer, and came up with some great pieces of slang that had a sort of Beat-vibe to them, befitting a man who ran around California in the late 60s as a poet and a musician. However, Sanders could have really benefited from some serious face-time with an editorial red pen. Many facts were printed in duplicate and triplicate, which added to the already-immense flood of information he packed into the book. Several passages read like he put every single detail from depositions and police reports into the book. As someone who regularly writes stories based on police reports, I know how tempting it is, but I also know that more often than not, you'll lose the point of your story in the details if you aren't selective about what is included.

If properly edited, the book could have been at least 50 pages shorter, and probably even shorter.

Now, the content itself was fascinating. I don't really buy into the myth of the 60s as a time of peace and free-love and good music and all that. You take a bunch of runaway kids and mix them up with a ton of drugs, and you have a culture that is just ripe for exploitation, which is exactly what happened. One of the ways those kids were exploited was through all of these "gurus" that appeared, promising to lead them to a higher plane of existence. Manson was one of those gurus, and he preached a particularly repellent version of a higher plane existence that involved race war and complete subjugation of women to men, along with vegetarianism and group sex. It was really interesting - and a bit scary - to see how a bunch of seemingly normal people could end up so entranced by one dude that they would be willing to abandon their families, commit crimes and even brutally murder people for him. It wasn't just the eight or nine people who ended up in jail, but hundreds of people who moved in and out of the family over the course of a few years.

I also like the procedural details about the criminal investigation and the trial, but that's just my thing. I can see how others would find it boring.

Ultimately I'd say that anyone who was really fascinated by the Manson family might want to read this but if you aren't, you'll find it boring.(less)

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Apr 03, 2008

Holli rated it

My brother and I both loved this book......we inherited an obsession of famous killers from our mom...morbid huh? We find them fascinating though.....how they can do what they do and what makes them do what they do......

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Sep 02, 2008

Laura rated it

this book is awesome in a teenage boy who's really into death metal and smokes pot all day kind of way. also, if you're into group dynamics, the occult, California as alternate universe, or really amazing hippie slang.

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Sep 18, 2009

Matthew W rated it

· review of another edition

A fun read written by a hippie about the ultimate anti-hippie and his "family." Pure degenerate Americana.

like 1 like

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Jan 24, 2012

Erik Graff rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Sanders/Manson fans

Recommended to Erik by: John Elkin

Shelves: history

I found this book at some used bookstore and gave it to my roommate, known for his interest in the bizarre. Then, months later, wanting something lighter than another reworked, Cambridge-published dissertation to read, I asked him for some recommendations. This book came up and was sitting on the dining room table the next day for my delectation.

I first heard of Ed Sanders early in high school when the local "fine arts station" played music by his band, The Fugs, on their...moreI found this book at some used bookstore and gave it to my roommate, known for his interest in the bizarre. Then, months later, wanting something lighter than another reworked, Cambridge-published dissertation to read, I asked him for some recommendations. This book came up and was sitting on the dining room table the next day for my delectation.

I first heard of Ed Sanders early in high school when the local "fine arts station" played music by his band, The Fugs, on their Saturday night program, "The Midnight Special." The Fugs were outrageously countercultural and quite possibly were the first "rock" band I actually liked. I was fifteen. My appreciation of rock music snowballed soon thereafter.

I suppose I heard about Charlie Manson back around the time of the Tate-Bianca murders. Stories of murders have never interested me very much, so I paid little attention to the news of the crimes or of the trials. Polanski, however, was of some interest. Several of his films, particularly "MacBeth" and "Cul de Sac", impressed me quite a bit. Sharon Tate was familiar to me from the movie she had done with Patty Duke, a pretty bad one, and the silly one she'd done with Polanski, "The Fearless Vampire Killers"--so bad that we turned of the tv maybe half and hour into the thing.

Since those days Manson, still alive, still in jail, has become a cultural icon. I saw a horrible film made back in the seventies about the murders which had been re-released by Troma, then the more recent, big-budget film "Helter Skelter". All of this was enough to get me to agree recently to watch a documentary, a long one, on the Web about Manson while visiting a friend in the suburbs.

The documentary was mostly an interview with Manson, conducted twenty or so years ago, interspersed with commentary and film clips of the various places associated with him and his group, "the Family." Among other things it made the point that Manson had not in fact been present at the murders I associated him with--at least he had not been proven to be present. He, in the interviews, claimed innocence.

This, the discovery that I'd misapprehended the affair, got me interested enough to do some digging. It began with looking into the Manson-sympathetic documentary. That turned out to have been produced by a self-styled Satanist--not an impressive credential in my book. It led to me reading this book.

Sanders' The Family was written just as the relevant trials were starting and, so, is in no way definitive. It is, however, informative, its author having performed many interviews of persons associated with the murdered and their murderers, interviews that other, more "straight" researchers probably could never have obtained. The writing style dates it, but not distractively so. The period slang and turns of phrase may actually lend it a note of authenticity. There being so many characters in the story, many of them with many aliases, that an index would have been useful. So, too, would have been photographs. Fortunately, two maps are provided.

Manson seems, from Sanders' portrait, the very soul of sociopathology. As such, he's almost understandable. What isn't so accessible, to me at least, is the nature of his following, especially the girls (and girls they were, most of them teens). Manson demeaned females, yet his most devoted followers were female.

Along the way one encounters whole sets of other weird grouplets such as The Church of Scientology, The Process, The Order of the Golden Dawn and others, the phenomenology of such cultish groups being a subtheme of the book. These also strike me as mysterious. As Sanders tells it, there's little reason behind such apparent madness as evinced by Manson's Family and these other dark cults.

All in all, Sanders' book pretty much just skims the surface of the events and personalities he describes, raising more questions than he answers. Given that he published while the trials were still on-going, this shallowness may be excused. Hopefully his research has contributed to more recent, and deeper, studies.

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Jan 10, 2008

John rated it

Ed Sanders (ex-Fug, leader of the counterculture, circa '67, according to Life magazine) should be commended for the kitchen sink approach he takes to his subject. He includes every unanswered question, rumor and crackpot conspiracy theory related to Manson, his accomplices and their crimes. He ties both Manson and the Tate-LaBianca victims to a celebrity studded "sado-maso club run out of Mama Cass's house," infamous for ritually torturing a drug dealer who ripped them off. He...more

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Jan 09, 2009

Peter rated it

This updated account of the Manson Family saga doesn't really add a whole lot to the original book but, given Sanders' thorough reporting style, you have to assume that whatever he's come up with is all that's happened since the last reprint. Still recommndeded for the highly detailed and idiosyncratic account of the murders, what led up to them and the immediate aftermath.

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Feb 12, 2008

Phil rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Fugs Fans

I loved the original edition of this book. I had spent some time as a wandering hippie in California and this book captures the feeling amazingly well. The later, revised edition is far inferior to the original. Sanders, older and wiser, tries to be a journalist instead of a storyteller/poet and the book suffers. If you care about the facts read Bugliosi's book, if you want to wallow in the counter-culture this book is for you. The story follows Charlie the parolee as he inserts himself into the...more

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Jan 11, 2009

Roy marked it as to-read

Considered the key critical (detailed) study of the Manson Family. I'm interested in the need for a community and culture experienced by these kids and how these needs played out in the mayhem they joined with seemingly so readily.

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Feb 21, 2008

Phil Overeem rated it

The book to end all books on Manson, written with great humor, sadness, horror, and--of course--poetry by a counter-culture icon from Independence, Missouri, the founder of the Fugs, and publisher of much wonderful verse, Ed Sanders. Blows HELTER SKELTER out of the water with both hands tied behind his back, with ten times the insight. Meticulously researched--and Sanders had access to (what he would call) creepy-crawly portals to the hippie netherworld Bugliosi didn't even know about. A great, ...more

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Jul 30, 2011

Oakley rated it

This is a great book for me to read now that I'm living in Los Angeles and it's the best book on the Manson fam. Sanders unravels this grim tale and manages to pull a lot of humour out of his investigation.

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Jan 14, 2008

William rated it

Sanders prose in this is so very strange, he maintains a tone that somehow manages to be mocking, goofy, indignant, salacious and prudish all at the same time, the last of which is particularly strange coming from a former member of the Fugs. I guess because he went into this thinking that Manson was set up by the establishment and found out the opposite it really threw him for a loop. He was definitely spooked by his investigation, finding satanists hiding behind every bush in California. Hun...more

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Sep 27, 2011

Jennifer Ware rated it

Shelves: biographies, horror

ughhhh. i read it because all of my friends were and i regreted it immediately. a story about sick scary people.

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Dec 11, 2010

Jess rated it

Shelves: true-crime

I wasn't a big fan of the author's writing style; I can't describe it. Intense read, nonetheless.

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Dec 01, 2011

Jeremy rated it

Shelves: 2011, vacation

written by one of the fugs!!!

read in n. zealand.

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Apr 09, 2011

Corey rated it

Shelves: true-crime

Of the many Manson books this one isn't bad...

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Aug 10, 2008

R.John rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: murderous pimps & dune buggy enthusiasts

Shelves: nonfiction

This is a great book because it deals with the counter-cultural milieu which Manson exploited to build his family with an insider's understanding. No real sensationalist, Sanders steeps his book in the language of a hip reporter. Sticking to the facts, interviews, and some unfortunate slang, the narrative crackles across the Californian hillside of desert wastoids and drug dealers that went pop in all the wrong ways. Ptweeet. Someday, man, I am going to get MY dune buggy battalion together, too,...more

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May 20, 2009

Lobstergirl added it · review of another edition

The subtitle not shown here is "The Whole Charles Manson Horrow Show." Not in the same league as Vincent Bugliosi's pathbreaking classic Helter Skelter.

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Mar 22, 2008

Dave rated it

Shelves: crime-adventure

A surreal look into the madness that was Charlie Manson and his "family". Very enlightening. This guy wasn't the only psycho in the group. A way more believable story than Helter Skelter. Either way, its drug induced hippy kill fest at its worst.

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Jun 16, 2008

Michael rated it

Boils Manson down to basically a pusher looking to frame other pushers so he could take over the trade. All occult/satan stuff severely downplayed. Couldn't make things less interesting if it tried. But accurate, I guess. Yawn?

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Feb 05, 2008

Robert Mooney rated it

Okay, so it wasn't Helter Skelter I read in high school, it was The Family. This story gave me the creeps but I couldn't put the book down. MUCH better than any crime fiction. Leave the lights on. Like that would help.

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Feb 05, 2008

Chris added it · review of another edition

With Manson's magic sword and dune buggy brigade he led his goon-hippies to the Hole. 1969 must have truly been the strangest time in American history. Ed Sanders gives you a slice of it.

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Mar 06, 2008

Rachel Dolan rated it

An amazing view of the late sixties - the overlap of the occult, pop music, free love, communes, drugs, and serial killers. check it out. you'll learn something.

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About Ed Sanders

Ed Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.

Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his...more

More about Ed Sanders...

Books by Ed Sanders

America: A History in Verse, Vol 3: 1962-1970

America: A History in Verse, Vol 1: 1900-1939

The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg: A Narrative Poem

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