For my second Honors novel, I read Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi (with Curt Gentry). I read the book by recommendation of my mother, who enjoyed it some years ago. While this book was, as presented to me, a very interesting read, it didn’t necessarily provide the insight to the sixties in Los Angeles that I had expected. While the last book I read, Listen to the Lambs, by Johnny Otis, provided a lot of time-specific details and context, Helter Skelter focused on the details of the case – which, in retrospect, should have been expected. I found it interesting, though, that some of the context in this book related back to the Watts Riots – the subject matter of my last book.
“The three-day heat wave had begun to break a couple of hours before, about 10 p.m. on Friday – to the psychological as well as the physical relief of those Angelenos who recalled that on such a night, just four years ago, Watts had exploded in violence” – written in reference to the night of the 1969 Manson murders on Cielo Drive.
This quote was on the first page of the book, and really helped to set the scene. In fact, I really enjoyed the introduction of the book, and felt that it helped to draw you into the story and become interested. Helter Skelter starts out – after listing captions to later-shown images, along with a list of people who appeared in the book – with a description of the night of the murders. Only, the occurrence is told from various perspectives – from the views of unknowing neighbors, campers, and strangers. Together, you get a general idea of what outsider’s experienced, and it gets you curious in what’s to come. From there, you get right into the gritty details of that night, and those that followed.
I think that part of what made this a successful book was that the author – Vincent Bugliosi – was the prosecuting attorney in the Manson trials. Because of this, you really in-depth and knowledgeable look into what, otherwise, could have been a somewhat mysterious happening. I was skeptical, going into reading this book, about how the quality of the writing would be, due to the fact that the author is not necessarily an author by trade. I was, however, pleasantly surprised at how flowing and well-told the story of Helter Skelter was. One segment that stood out to me as well-written and interesting was:
“Sometimes fear can be measured. Among the barometers: In two days one Beverly Hills sporting goods store sold 200 firearms; prior to the murders, they averaged three or four a day.”
The quote goes on with more details, but it just stood out to me as being both informative and extremely relevant to the understanding of the feeling of Los Angeles during this time. Another aspect of this book that I appreciated was the photographs that were included. I was originally going to purchase this book on my Nook, sans-pictures, but I’m really glad that I went with the physical copy that included them. While you can understand a lot by reading about the characters and scenes, seeing what actually happened really gave more depth to the story.
While I didn’t necessarily learn much about Los Angeles in the 1960’s from this book, I certainly thought that it was a worthwhile and interesting read. Even though I’d vaguely heard about the Manson murders previously, this book really went deep inside the case and gave me a ton of information I hadn’t had previously.
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