Not sure I have read anything so informative, impassioned & learned on Charles Manson & The Family before. The book was more than a great read it was a kind of kinky time machine. A piece of work that transferred me from one period of the 1960`s, along with all its neurosis, & into another.
Coming Down Fast is as a tour de force & does not let up. Neither does it disappoint or fail on any level. It answered all my questions & opened me up to the many more possibilities of pain & misery that The Family potentially caused then & even today. The book was more than a great read it was a kind of kinky time machine. A piece of work that transferred me from one period of the 1960`s, along with all its neurosis, & into another.
Manson was a dark character, no two ways about it & the the women were deeply & profoundly vulnerable when they met him. Manson was able to reinforce his twisted logic & self-belief onto them by utilizing the profound effects of LSD, & Nuero Linguistics Psychology techniques. Years of incarceration had left Manson to teach himself many techniques aimed at controlling others that were vulnerable. He was intelligent, for sure, but the same way a bully is that knows his prey. I came away thinking that perhaps Manson was simply a carbon copy of his dysfunctional Mother, who was also had a disturbed & controlling, nature towards those she needed.
Manson`s Mother had an awful influence upon him, & I struggle to recall his Father at all. There is mention of him, but his presence is slim, being denigrated to a bit-part player in Manson life. Like his Mother, anybody who became involved with Manson suffered, & there his Father falls into this category too.
The controversy still surrounds Manson & The Family. The misery that they caused till exists today. Recently I attempted to discuss Manson`s music in a closed Facebook group that I belong to & I found myself at the end of another`s exceedingly sharp tounge berating me for even attempting to introduce his music to the group. Manson`s influence is still far-reaching. Just something as simple as discussing Manson` musical output, that Neil Young, The Beach Boys & many others all endorsed, can be dangerous.
The end of the book I found extremely enlightening. It was fascinating to read about what was happening now. Desperately I wanted to be made aware of what they had been doing with their lives since their time of incarceration. Equally I wanted understand the geography too. Do people still attend these grim places ? And if so what do they do when they are there ? Do they sit & worship them as though they were tabernacles of some close historical horror that only the they uniquely understand ?
The women are tragic; Susan, Patrica & Linda. I make no excuses for what they did. It was ghastly, cruel & horrific. Yet, for the sake of Manson they reneged their lives & their freedom. Squeaky I am not sure about, she seems happy to be in prison simply because Manson & the others two are. Perhaps she has some kind of misguided, bastard loyalty that only she understands ? Maybe the assassination that she attempted much later, after the rest of the crew were sent down, upon Gerald Ford now provides comfort for her in her old age ?
The Joel Pugh/ Bruce Davis twist at the end was a real head turner. Scary because Davis may well have been The Zodiac killer. This profound & deeply disturbing fast-ball quite literally shocked me. The reverberations of fear had me hiding behind the couch instantly. The Zodiac killings, as they were termed by Californian authorities, was carried about by a supremely intelligent, but psychotic murderer. frighteningly, he was never caught. What Simon Wells has done, for the very first time in print, is connect, quite logically, Bruce Davis with the killings.The timings add up, the personalities sure do add up & after Davis incarcerated the killing simply stopped. Was The Son Of Sam, & even the Oklahoma Bomber connected with the long reaches of crime, murder & suffering that The Family became involved in ? The potential is daunting, for there are those out there that would still today carry out any wishes that Manson or Davis wanted.
There were points in the book that really stood out for me, like picturing Manson & his girls hanging out in recording studios with Terry Melcher & Dennis Wilson. Seeing an apparition of them all dancing together at The Whiskey A Go Go also really grabbed me. Incredible images thanks to Wells` superb annotation.
At times I was close to tears, then in a moment I was up dancing to The White Album. One evening struggling to get to sleep I found myself getting up & taking a peek out the bedroom window. What I saw as I looked through the darkness was an apparition of Sadie Atkins dancing on the lawn. She was calling my name like some Hindu Goddess who knows a mans weaknesses far too well. Quickly I ran back & hid under the sheets still hearing " Come out, dance with me ". This is an example of the weight & might of Wells Coming Down Fast.
Before I begun reading Simon`s work I came across a negative review on Amazon against Wells book. Personally I think is somewhat unfair. It goes nowhere near taking into account several incredible points that that Wells brought up with his fantastic research. Namely that the Joel Pugh murder in London happened the exact same time Bruce Davis, the man that could be attached to the Zodiac killings, was in London on a pilgrimage to Sussex looking into Scientology. The connection is extremely important in today`s light, especially when reviewing the tentacles that Manson`s criminality has wrecked upon the collective psyche of nations over the last forty years. To attempt to rubbish this incredible connection, between London & Manson, is just ignorant & naive. For Wells work opens up the real potential for people to begin finding answers into missing friends & family that could well of become Family victims. Equally important the possibility of an international occult crime fraternity that could be thriving to this day.
The book was wonderful & I think that it is an essential read for anyone interested, not only in Charles Manson & The Family, but in the odd & dysfunctional period of time that led up to the 1970`s, here & in the States. It was a dark period that ended abominably on August 10th 1969.
Coming Down Fast is worth a few pounds of anyone`s money. Read it, enjoy it, be with Simon Wells, because this cat knows where its at.
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