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Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme
A biography of Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme examines her suburban childhood, her involvement with the Los Angeles counterculture and Charles Manson, and her attempt to kill President Ford
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 12, 2008
I've always thought you have to take anything thats been written about the so called "Manson family", whether pro or anti Manson, with a huge grain of salt. This book requires less salt than anything I've read pertaining to the "Manson family" to date.
The author paints a very sympathetic picture of Fromme. I think the angle he is getting at is Manson was able to influence Fromme because she was looking for a Father figure type because her dad was emotionally abusive, neglectful and he strongly implies that Squeaky was sexually abused by him. (which Fromme has denied is true) He also does a lot to show and explain the environmental/ecological activism and theories of the "Manson family", which I found interesting and a lot more well grounded than Bugliosi's screwy "helter skelter" theory. The environmental issues were the main focus and obsession of the "Manson family", not "helter skelter" in my own personal opinion.
I'm giving this book 4 stars, I'm leaning toward giving it 5 but some the stuff on her trial for attempted murder on former President Gerald Ford drags a little, although some of Frommes wacky courtroom behaviour during the trial is amusing. I personally do not believe she had any intention on shooting Ford either, she was just was trying to draw attention to the environmental issues she was obsessed with.
The author paints a very sympathetic picture of Fromme. I think the angle he is getting at is Manson was able to influence Fromme because she was looking for a Father figure type because her dad was emotionally abusive, neglectful and he strongly implies that Squeaky was sexually abused by him. (which Fromme has denied is true) He also does a lot to show and explain the environmental/ecological activism and theories of the "Manson family", which I found interesting and a lot more well grounded than Bugliosi's screwy "helter skelter" theory. The environmental issues were the main focus and obsession of the "Manson family", not "helter skelter" in my own personal opinion.
I'm giving this book 4 stars, I'm leaning toward giving it 5 but some the stuff on her trial for attempted murder on former President Gerald Ford drags a little, although some of Frommes wacky courtroom behaviour during the trial is amusing. I personally do not believe she had any intention on shooting Ford either, she was just was trying to draw attention to the environmental issues she was obsessed with.
August 24, 2009
This is really a 2 1/2 star book. I don't recommend it.
I came to the sad realization after reading it that Lynette Fromme didn't really deserve to have a book written about her.
I came to the sad realization after reading it that Lynette Fromme didn't really deserve to have a book written about her.
January 23, 2017
If there were an option for 3 1/2 stars, that would be perfect.
First of all, if you're not a Manson Family buff (and yes, I know that sounds strange, but there are many of us who continue to find this the ultimate in true crime stories), this book isn't for you. It's very slow at first going through Lynnette Fromme's childhood. Definitely a better editor would have shortened this section which is important as it emphasizes her seemingly normal childhood and early teens. However, once we get into the Manson years, this book really begins to fly. However, I chose to read it because even after all these years, I'm still stumped about what it is that his followers saw in Charles Manson. I understand that he picked those who had specific needs to take into his "family", and perhaps Lyn has been his most loyal adherent. After this book was published, I saw that she has been paroled, but could find no further info about her, so I don't know whether she still, at the age of 68 is loyal to him.
The criminal part of this book pertains to her attempt to assassinate then President Gerald Ford. It is quite obvious that she’s an intelligent woman and she learned a lot about legal practice independently. But throughout her trial it was quite obvious that more than anything, she wanted to bring in Manson as a witness. The court refused to accommodate her.
Again, if you’re a Manson buff, this is your book. If you’re not, it could either lead you down that path, with required reading being “Helter Skelter”, or you’ll put it down quickly. I’m glad I read it.
First of all, if you're not a Manson Family buff (and yes, I know that sounds strange, but there are many of us who continue to find this the ultimate in true crime stories), this book isn't for you. It's very slow at first going through Lynnette Fromme's childhood. Definitely a better editor would have shortened this section which is important as it emphasizes her seemingly normal childhood and early teens. However, once we get into the Manson years, this book really begins to fly. However, I chose to read it because even after all these years, I'm still stumped about what it is that his followers saw in Charles Manson. I understand that he picked those who had specific needs to take into his "family", and perhaps Lyn has been his most loyal adherent. After this book was published, I saw that she has been paroled, but could find no further info about her, so I don't know whether she still, at the age of 68 is loyal to him.
The criminal part of this book pertains to her attempt to assassinate then President Gerald Ford. It is quite obvious that she’s an intelligent woman and she learned a lot about legal practice independently. But throughout her trial it was quite obvious that more than anything, she wanted to bring in Manson as a witness. The court refused to accommodate her.
Again, if you’re a Manson buff, this is your book. If you’re not, it could either lead you down that path, with required reading being “Helter Skelter”, or you’ll put it down quickly. I’m glad I read it.
June 27, 2015
This is a very comprehensive book on the life of Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. What I really liked was reading her life in the context of the late 60s and early 70s. Meeting Manson, the Vietnam War, her hate of Nixon and love for the environment and the trees is all clearly emphasized. In fact, it appears that Squeaky was one of the first "eco-terrorists", ready to kill to save the trees.
She was an extremely intelligent and well spoken woman. During the trial, she argued for herself like a lawyer. She most likely approved and masterminded many of the Manson killings but never participated in the brutal slayings. To the end, she felt justified with everything she did. Perhaps she had a bad case of "survivor's guilt" and used her trial as a platform to get Manson to testify in court and free those found guilty in the Tate-LaBianca killings?
I really think the whole Ford assassination attempt was a way to garner attention to the Manson cause. I don't think she really planned to kill Ford-she would have carried it out.
Lynette Fromme was an intelligent woman with an emotional capacity of an adolescent. As a child, she danced, was into drama and spent a great deal on stage. This continued on with her street corner displays and antics. She had father issues as many of the Manson women did. She was angry and full of hate against people but clearly loved the redwoods, whales, seals and nature.
This is a thorough bio of a twisted woman who wanted and demanded attention for her causes. It's just sad that a woman-girl like Lynette wasted her life following a madman who most likely brainwashed her and came into her vulnerable life as a surrogate father. Well written and very worthwhile read!
She was an extremely intelligent and well spoken woman. During the trial, she argued for herself like a lawyer. She most likely approved and masterminded many of the Manson killings but never participated in the brutal slayings. To the end, she felt justified with everything she did. Perhaps she had a bad case of "survivor's guilt" and used her trial as a platform to get Manson to testify in court and free those found guilty in the Tate-LaBianca killings?
I really think the whole Ford assassination attempt was a way to garner attention to the Manson cause. I don't think she really planned to kill Ford-she would have carried it out.
Lynette Fromme was an intelligent woman with an emotional capacity of an adolescent. As a child, she danced, was into drama and spent a great deal on stage. This continued on with her street corner displays and antics. She had father issues as many of the Manson women did. She was angry and full of hate against people but clearly loved the redwoods, whales, seals and nature.
This is a thorough bio of a twisted woman who wanted and demanded attention for her causes. It's just sad that a woman-girl like Lynette wasted her life following a madman who most likely brainwashed her and came into her vulnerable life as a surrogate father. Well written and very worthwhile read!
July 2, 2022
This is a chronicle of a wasted life. In her late teens, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was a high school dropout from a troubled family. When she met Charles Manson he treated her the way she wanted to be treated and told her everything she wanted to hear. He became a father figure just when she desperately needed one. In Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme, Jess Bravin tells the story of her life from her promising childhood to time spent with the Manson Family, her attempt at shooting President Gerald Ford, and her strange court case. This is the portrait of a young woman in which the tracks of good and evil ran parallel to each other while it was certain that whatever train she was riding on those tracks would end in a wreck.
Bravin’s book opens with the morning when Fromme showed up in a crowd wishing to see Gerald Ford for one moment as he visited California’s state capitol, Sacramento. She aimed an antique pistol at the President before being tackled by the secret service and taken away to prison. Then we get the story of her life.
Lynette Fromme grew up in conservative California, having an unstable relationship with her family. The author claims she was abused by her father, although Ms. Fromme denied this allegation when asked to comment on this biography. In any case, she had a talent for the performing arts and when she got to high school, like so many other artistic type teenagers, she began writing poetry. She was smart and attractive but had trouble keeping up with her studies, eventually dropped out, and got involved with bikers, hippies, and the drug scene. Thirty years later, there would have been nothing unusual about this but back then she was a kind of pioneer in the art of being an adolescent screw-up with no direction in life.
But then she met a man who gave her direction in life. Unfortunately, that man was Charles Manson who appointed her to be the number two leader in his death cult, the Manson Family. Fortunately, for those of us who have been around long enough to have heard the story of the Family and the Tate-LaBianca murders, Bravin does not dwell too long on this chapter of Fromme’s life, and why would he? We’ve all heard the story a sufficient number of times. But with Fromme in the foreground of this telling, we do see another angle. She acted as the mother hen of the cult and helped to hold the whole thing together. Fromme was charming, waifish, and cute; her caring, loving, and nurturing attitude towards the other members provided a distinct contrast to the things that made the Manson Family notorious. With her articulate and imaginative mind, she probably also fed Manson a lot of ideas that became part of his philosophy, if you want to go as far as calling it that. She certainly doesn’t come across in these pages as a murderer, but then again she didn’t participate in the murders anyhow. Manson sent his more disposable followers to do those deeds.
Although Fromme didn’t kill anybody, she did continue to defend the Tate-LaBianca murders after the trial. From that point on, she was on a mission and her mission was to save the planet from ecological disaster and teach the world about how Charles Manson was the only messiah who could do so. Aside from the Manson crap and her association with a bunch of criminals, Bravin portrays her almost as a sympathetic character. She had good relations with everybody around her, committed herself to the cause of world peace, and educated herself extensively on environmental sciences. But then again, she also had a strange tendency to send death threats to the CEOs of corporations that were doing things to damage the Earth. She never acted on these threats, though, and in the end, they make her look like a scared and vulnerable person with a childish mind, Hiding her fear and insecurity behind a fierce mask of viciousness and violence...kind of like a lot of people on the internet.
Jess Bravin spends almost half the book describing the trial for attempted murder of the president. At a certain level, this seems excessive and unnecessary. But from Bravin’s point of view it makes some sense; the author is a journalist who covers court trials and Squeaky is his first published book. You can deduce that he was assigned to cover Fromme’s trial, found it interesting enough to write into a book, and then realized the trial coverage on its own was neither long enough or enteraining enough to fill out a whole book and therefore decided to make it into a complete biography instead.
Saying that the trial wasn’t interesting enough doesn’t mean the trial wasn’t interesting at all. In fact, it was a unique trial for a number of reasons. One is the relationship between the judge and Lynette Fromme. The judge was a principled man who was deeply committed to ensuring that she receive a fair trial. There were times when they related to each other like father and daughter. Another interesting aspect was Fromme’s behavior. First she wanted to fire her attorneys and represent herself in court, then she refused to be present during the trial. During the examination, it also came out that she hadn’t actually wanted to kill Gerald Ford. What she really wanted was to be taken to court so she could address the world via the media to explain the urgent need to save the planet and how Charles Manson was the only one who could do that. The judge refused to allow her to use the courtroom as a space for activism and so she refused to attend her own trial. Also of interest was the trouble the prosecution had in conducting their case against her.
Overall, this isn’t a biography of major interest. Lynette Fromme probably didn’t do enough of anything to be more than a footnote in the Manson Family chronicles and an oddity of a courtroom drama. Some details of the trial were trivial. Do we really need to know what TV shows the attorneys liked or what the jurors ate for breakfast? There were a lot of little details that added nothing to the story. The passage about how much fan mail Ford got after the assassination attempt was a torturous read. This is almost balanced by the fact that another woman and one man tried to assassinate Ford on later dates. If it wasn’t embarrassing enough that Ford is the only president who ever had an assassination attempt made against him by a woman, it is even worse that the attempt was made by two different women on two different occasions. And then he lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford gets my vote for the dopiest president ever. But if Bravin’s main preoccupation was with the trial, then he was wise to make this a full biography because getting to know about Fromme’s personality and earlier life does a lot in explaining her motivation for the assassination attempt and her behavior in court.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, in the end, emerges as a complex character. She cared about people but believed in mass murder. She had intellectual strength and creativity but was emotionally stunted in early childhood. When she wasn’t being eccentric she could be surprisingly down to earth. One minute she was cute and charismatic, then the next she could be equally repulsive. It is hard to imagine what she would have become if she hadn’t gotten lost in the world at such a young age, but she certainly had the potential to be a lot more than what she became. For this reason, Jess Bravin’s Squeaky portrays her in a partially sympathetic light. Even if this isn’t a work of major importance, it still provides an interesting character study of a woman with a singular, and unusually complex personality.
Bravin’s book opens with the morning when Fromme showed up in a crowd wishing to see Gerald Ford for one moment as he visited California’s state capitol, Sacramento. She aimed an antique pistol at the President before being tackled by the secret service and taken away to prison. Then we get the story of her life.
Lynette Fromme grew up in conservative California, having an unstable relationship with her family. The author claims she was abused by her father, although Ms. Fromme denied this allegation when asked to comment on this biography. In any case, she had a talent for the performing arts and when she got to high school, like so many other artistic type teenagers, she began writing poetry. She was smart and attractive but had trouble keeping up with her studies, eventually dropped out, and got involved with bikers, hippies, and the drug scene. Thirty years later, there would have been nothing unusual about this but back then she was a kind of pioneer in the art of being an adolescent screw-up with no direction in life.
But then she met a man who gave her direction in life. Unfortunately, that man was Charles Manson who appointed her to be the number two leader in his death cult, the Manson Family. Fortunately, for those of us who have been around long enough to have heard the story of the Family and the Tate-LaBianca murders, Bravin does not dwell too long on this chapter of Fromme’s life, and why would he? We’ve all heard the story a sufficient number of times. But with Fromme in the foreground of this telling, we do see another angle. She acted as the mother hen of the cult and helped to hold the whole thing together. Fromme was charming, waifish, and cute; her caring, loving, and nurturing attitude towards the other members provided a distinct contrast to the things that made the Manson Family notorious. With her articulate and imaginative mind, she probably also fed Manson a lot of ideas that became part of his philosophy, if you want to go as far as calling it that. She certainly doesn’t come across in these pages as a murderer, but then again she didn’t participate in the murders anyhow. Manson sent his more disposable followers to do those deeds.
Although Fromme didn’t kill anybody, she did continue to defend the Tate-LaBianca murders after the trial. From that point on, she was on a mission and her mission was to save the planet from ecological disaster and teach the world about how Charles Manson was the only messiah who could do so. Aside from the Manson crap and her association with a bunch of criminals, Bravin portrays her almost as a sympathetic character. She had good relations with everybody around her, committed herself to the cause of world peace, and educated herself extensively on environmental sciences. But then again, she also had a strange tendency to send death threats to the CEOs of corporations that were doing things to damage the Earth. She never acted on these threats, though, and in the end, they make her look like a scared and vulnerable person with a childish mind, Hiding her fear and insecurity behind a fierce mask of viciousness and violence...kind of like a lot of people on the internet.
Jess Bravin spends almost half the book describing the trial for attempted murder of the president. At a certain level, this seems excessive and unnecessary. But from Bravin’s point of view it makes some sense; the author is a journalist who covers court trials and Squeaky is his first published book. You can deduce that he was assigned to cover Fromme’s trial, found it interesting enough to write into a book, and then realized the trial coverage on its own was neither long enough or enteraining enough to fill out a whole book and therefore decided to make it into a complete biography instead.
Saying that the trial wasn’t interesting enough doesn’t mean the trial wasn’t interesting at all. In fact, it was a unique trial for a number of reasons. One is the relationship between the judge and Lynette Fromme. The judge was a principled man who was deeply committed to ensuring that she receive a fair trial. There were times when they related to each other like father and daughter. Another interesting aspect was Fromme’s behavior. First she wanted to fire her attorneys and represent herself in court, then she refused to be present during the trial. During the examination, it also came out that she hadn’t actually wanted to kill Gerald Ford. What she really wanted was to be taken to court so she could address the world via the media to explain the urgent need to save the planet and how Charles Manson was the only one who could do that. The judge refused to allow her to use the courtroom as a space for activism and so she refused to attend her own trial. Also of interest was the trouble the prosecution had in conducting their case against her.
Overall, this isn’t a biography of major interest. Lynette Fromme probably didn’t do enough of anything to be more than a footnote in the Manson Family chronicles and an oddity of a courtroom drama. Some details of the trial were trivial. Do we really need to know what TV shows the attorneys liked or what the jurors ate for breakfast? There were a lot of little details that added nothing to the story. The passage about how much fan mail Ford got after the assassination attempt was a torturous read. This is almost balanced by the fact that another woman and one man tried to assassinate Ford on later dates. If it wasn’t embarrassing enough that Ford is the only president who ever had an assassination attempt made against him by a woman, it is even worse that the attempt was made by two different women on two different occasions. And then he lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford gets my vote for the dopiest president ever. But if Bravin’s main preoccupation was with the trial, then he was wise to make this a full biography because getting to know about Fromme’s personality and earlier life does a lot in explaining her motivation for the assassination attempt and her behavior in court.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, in the end, emerges as a complex character. She cared about people but believed in mass murder. She had intellectual strength and creativity but was emotionally stunted in early childhood. When she wasn’t being eccentric she could be surprisingly down to earth. One minute she was cute and charismatic, then the next she could be equally repulsive. It is hard to imagine what she would have become if she hadn’t gotten lost in the world at such a young age, but she certainly had the potential to be a lot more than what she became. For this reason, Jess Bravin’s Squeaky portrays her in a partially sympathetic light. Even if this isn’t a work of major importance, it still provides an interesting character study of a woman with a singular, and unusually complex personality.
October 22, 2015
I was glad to come across this book, and for the most part, it held my interest. There were parts that got repetitive or gave more detail than the material seemed to justify. I don't like an author telling me what to think about their subject, but at times I wish he'd taken a little more of a stand. The biggest example is one of the big questions: did Fromme have any real intention of shooting Ford that day? The short answer is that we will never really know, but I wish the guy who spent a lot of time researching the subject would at least venture an opinion.
In the end, I felt a little frustrated because Fromme remains a cipher to me. Perhaps the author felt the same way, and expressed that in his work.
In the end, I felt a little frustrated because Fromme remains a cipher to me. Perhaps the author felt the same way, and expressed that in his work.
October 5, 2013
This is a very enjoyable and well-researched biography.
It is very thorough and so may not be as enjoyable to people with only a passing interest in The Family. There is not much new reported about The Family, but the writing is good enough that you don't mind that you are treading familiar ground on the roughly 100 pages that deal with those years of Lynnette Fromme's life. The other 300 pages provide a lot of insight into her youth and upbringing and her activities post-1970. Highly recommended for anyone with interest in Manson or The Family.
It is very thorough and so may not be as enjoyable to people with only a passing interest in The Family. There is not much new reported about The Family, but the writing is good enough that you don't mind that you are treading familiar ground on the roughly 100 pages that deal with those years of Lynnette Fromme's life. The other 300 pages provide a lot of insight into her youth and upbringing and her activities post-1970. Highly recommended for anyone with interest in Manson or The Family.
January 30, 2008
come to think of it, i never did finish this book. as soon as sqeaky and accomplice (i forgot her name) were actually put in jail i got bored and started another book. jesus my reviews are fascinating.
August 24, 2024
A somewhat surprising chronicle of Charles Manson’s most loyal disciple is genuine respectful biography covering her life beyond the True Crime headlines.
The story of her adolescence reads like an S.E. Hinton story, in which she’s the sensitive, troubled rebel showing up to school with bruises from her abusive father, seen through the eyes of people who knew her in high school (she went to school with Phil Hartman!). The author doesn’t go into how much of her behavior is mental illness, her abusive upbringing, the result of taking heroic amounts of LSD or a combination platter. She definitely had her mentals, but she wasn’t a monster.
The only weakness to the book is the exhaustive coverage of her 1975 trial. The author is a lawyer so it makes sense this would feature prominently but for this layperson it felt like it could’ve used some trimming. For that reason, I wouldn’t recommend it to someone not already interested in the subject but Helter-heads will find a lot of fascinating details.
The story of her adolescence reads like an S.E. Hinton story, in which she’s the sensitive, troubled rebel showing up to school with bruises from her abusive father, seen through the eyes of people who knew her in high school (she went to school with Phil Hartman!). The author doesn’t go into how much of her behavior is mental illness, her abusive upbringing, the result of taking heroic amounts of LSD or a combination platter. She definitely had her mentals, but she wasn’t a monster.
The only weakness to the book is the exhaustive coverage of her 1975 trial. The author is a lawyer so it makes sense this would feature prominently but for this layperson it felt like it could’ve used some trimming. For that reason, I wouldn’t recommend it to someone not already interested in the subject but Helter-heads will find a lot of fascinating details.
March 24, 2021
Started off good but then about halfway through it kept going off onto various political tangents. I wanted to read more about Squeaky not the American political system. Could've been better if the author had stayed on target.
January 17, 2023
Informative
This book contains lots of unknown facts about The Family. It is just TOO LONG!..
Could be 25 percent less wordy.
This book contains lots of unknown facts about The Family. It is just TOO LONG!..
Could be 25 percent less wordy.
February 12, 2021
This book is about Lynette Fromme, who was rechristened by the Manson Family to Squeaky. Lynette sang in the school choir, she danced, and she even was able to perform for President Eisenhower at one point. Lynette was searching for something that was missing in her life, perhaps a parental figure. She met Charles Manson and began a downward spiral that culminated in her incarceration for the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford. I bought this book because I was interested in the Manson Family and all of their activities. I learned quite a bit about the Manson Family and the way they operate from this book, as well as the life of Lynette Fromme. I gave this book only three stars because there were a lot of parts that were boring to me. If anyone else is interested in the Manson Family, this is a good book to put in your collection.
May 26, 2012
[Text removed because it was a huge pile of embarrassing Livejournaly feelings-ramble, only tangentially related to the book under "review," which may have been appropriate when this Goodreads account was just a dumping ground for my miscellaneous personal wankery but is less so now that I'm trying to use the site as it was intended. Anyway, this is a good book, and I do recommend it to anyone who, like me, is fascinated by cults and the confusing ways they make us feel given our culturally instilled attitudes toward religion, faith, violence, power, etc.]
July 19, 2016
This was a long one but I really enjoyed it, and I would add it to the pile of "better" Manson Family related books. Some of the parts with the Ford trial were a bit slow, but other than that it kept me pretty well enraptured. However, I still feel like there's quite a few pieces missing about Squeaky that complete a full picture. A complicated subject, indeed.
February 7, 2014
I was cast as Squeaky Fromme in the musical 'Assassins,' and I picked this book up (along with lots of other sources) so that I could study her and imitate as much of her being as possible without knowing her. I enjoyed the read.
November 19, 2016
Definitely more impartial than Bugliosi's book but I actually couldn't finish this one. I left it with about 50 pages to go. Let's just say that Gerald Ford is more of an insignificant footnote in history than even Manson and Squeaky.
June 27, 2012
Most of this book deals with Ms. Fromme's trial & subsequent prison time for her assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford.
September 2, 2013
I believe she was more dangerous then Manson, and we all know how sick he was.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews