Paul Decker read and liked Steve's review of Sway: A Novel:

"Sway is one of those novels that gets underneath your skin – and not in a good way. Zachary Lazar has chosen quite a crew through which to filter his dark story of the sixties: Bobby Beausoleil (Manson family member), the Rolling Stones (the main...more Sway is one of those novels that gets underneath your skin – and not in a good way. Zachary Lazar has chosen quite a crew through which to filter his dark story of the sixties: Bobby Beausoleil (Manson family member), the Rolling Stones (the main ones anyway), and underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger. If you like Don DeLillo, you should like Sway. I’m not a big fan of DeLllo, but I found “Sway” to be an impressive feat of integrating historical facts and figures into a work of fiction. DeLillo, when he’s on his game, is a master at this. Unfortunately, in a big sprawling novel like Underworld, DeLillo has plenty of space to be both on and off his game. In contrast, Sway has a much tighter focus, with a cast (and by extension, a culture?) of characters whose embrace of darkness and chaos, all fits under the black umbrella of Death.

Interestingly, the real ringmaster for all of this is not the obvious Manson (who pretty much stays on the periphery of the story), or even the sympathetic toward the Devil Stones. It’s Kenneth Anger. Whatever you want to say about this extremely strange man, he knows what he’s about. I actually went and watched a number of his films on YouTube. I found them all to be disturbing, but sometimes in a way that’s hard to finger. There’s no real story to his films, it’s all about establishing mood, through image, image distortion, symbols (satanic stuff, Nazi, leather, motorcycles, pentagrams, clowns, the moon, Egyptian gods and goddesses doing a lot of pointing, and at least one flying saucer), and weird music. Even a short movie on Mickey Mouse has the quick insert from a film by Hitchcock showing a Merry-Go-Round becoming unmoored. This guy is about chaos. Lazar understands this thoroughly, and it’s probably why the Anger portions of the novel are the best realized – and the most unsettling.

The Stones portions are also good. If you are a Rolling Stones fan, get ready to be disillusioned. Actually, if you are long time fan, like me, you’ve probably already heard or read a number of stories related to their earlier days. Lazar however fleshes these stories out. There’s something a bit unnerving about Brian Jones wearing a necklace with human teeth, or Mick constantly changing masks to meet the moment, or the Stones in general getting stoned and practicing on their instruments, while an Anger film is runs continuously on the wall. If you play with fire, enough, hey…

Bobby Beausoleil gets the lightest treatment, but he does provide linkage (and Sway is all about links and echoes) by being a killing tool for Manson, and a lover, actor, and musician for Anger – who actually seems to care for him. Manson and Anger may be worlds apart in temperament (it’s hard to imagine Anger actually hurting someone), but they do embrace, quite willingly, darkness, because for them that’s the way the world is. The Stones also embrace the darkness (paint it black!), but unlike Manson and Anger, they actually think they can control it, make it a part of their career trajectory. Altamont proves otherwise, as Jagger’s playing at being the Devil runs into the reality of Hell’s Angels doing what they want (beating, killing) in front of the stage.

Lazar is not just a passive chronicler of all of this. In his own controlled way he inserts authorial judgments. Early on in the novel (around 1962), as the Stones are starting to get traction, Lazar’s disgust with the shallowness of the elevation of the Self (something by the way Anger admires as a Satanic doctrine) is pretty apparent:

“A kind of culture has started to evolve. Everyone under thirty has decided that they’re an exception – a musician, a runaway, an artist, a star. There are no more wars to fight, no more ration coupons, nothing to do but study graphic design or live in Paris for a month busking in the Metro. They have no experience of fear, or violence, or patriotism, or duty. What they have instead is an obsession with style, a collage of half-understood influences from other times and places. It is a language of pure connotation.”

Strong stuff. One could make an argument that beneath the surface of Sway’s post-modern fragmentation, lie the concerns of a moralist. Evidence is replete throughout the novel, through example after example, but there’s a stunning tableau toward the end of the book, which I felt bracketed the above passage. It involves concertgoers going toward Altamont, close on the heels of the Manson murders, to see the Stones in the now infamous concert:

“Nobody knew what to think about the story, whether it was to be believed. Nobody could explain the strange glamour of it, why the killers were fascinating while their victims were hardly even real. It had already been a day and a half of wine and Quaaludes, seizures by the medicine tent, fist fights, barking dogs, but it was possible not to look at any of that if you didn’t want to look at it. Some of them broke out into fits of dancing and singing, buoyed by the bright, sunny day. There was a procession of people in flowers and beads who pushed a colorfully painted cart through the crowd, its spoked wheels as high as their shoulders. Inside the bed was a blue cow made of paper-mache, like something from India. In spite of everything they knew about the band, in spite of everything the band embodied, the crowd was thinking about Woodstock, the glow of having been there. They all wanted this to be something like that, and they were already a little frantic, wanting a good spot, not wanting to miss out.”

Again, strong stuff. Paint that cow gold and what have you got? And Mick is no Moses – just the opposite. Lazar’s imagery is deliberate, and devastating, since he’s established a foundation of excess and chaos through the stories and events of each of his characters. Sway is a fine novel, and probably a needed antidote for the syrupy nostalgia of the Beatles movie “Across the Universe.” And I liked that movie, but Sway will hang with me longer, go deeper with what it has to say.

Update: I think I should of rated this 5 stars. (less) "