Sanders, Ed; (Manson, Charles; et al.)

The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion

New York, NY, USA: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1971. First Edition. Hardcover. “Around July 22, 1955, Charles Manson drove a stolen 1951 Mercury from Bridgeport, Ohio to Los Angeles, bringing with him his seventeen-year-old pregnant wife Rosalie. All was. In September he was arrested and pleaded guilty on October 17, 1955. The psychiatric report prepared after Manson’s arrest stated that he was a “poor risk for probation” but, on the other hand, it was felt that married life plus incipient fatherhood, which calms down juvenile delinquents everywhere, might put him onto the direct path of the American Way. So on November 7, 1955, Manson was sentenced to five years probation. Manson had been on parole since May 18, 1954. He was twenty-one years old. He had been in prison since he was sixteen and in various corrective institutions before that since he was thirteen. After his arrest Manson made the mistake of admitting to the Feds during interrogation in 1954, the year previous, he had taken a hot auto from the strip-mine area of West Virginia down to Florida. As a result of this self-snitch, on January 11, 1956, Manson appeared before the Federal Commissioner in Los Angeles regarding a complaint filed in Miami, Florida charging violation of the Dyer Act. Released on his own recognizance, Manson was told to return to court on February 15. Shortly thereafter he fled Los Angeles, evidently accompanied by his heavily pregnant wife Rosalie. They drove back home to Appalachia.”--Ed Sanders, pg. 21. Ed Sanders (b. 1939) is an American literary legend, vocalist for The Fugs, activist, and founder of the avant-garde journal Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts, and is often considered a bridge between the Beat Generation and the Hippie countercultural era. Sanders has a long and almost unimpeachable oeuvre, with works like: Peace Eye (1965); Shards of God (1970); Tales of Beatnik Glory Vol. 1 (1975); The Cutting Prow (1983); Hymn to the Rebel Cafe (1993); and Let’s Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War: New and Selected Poems 1986-2009 (2009) among many many others. Offered today is the 1971 masterwork of history and peerless research, The Family: The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion. As the inside flaps of the dust jacket says: “For two years, working day and night, Ed Sanders descended into a nether world that knows no boundaries. In seeking answers as to how Charles Manson can exist, how he can wield such extraordinary power over other human beings, Sanders gained access to every material witness including Manson, to the Tate-LaBianca murders, journeyed many times to the family’s quarters at the Spawn Ranch, camped out in Inyo County and Death Valley, the desert hideaways of Manson and his associates, investigated occult societies in Los Angeles who conducted various forms of sacrificial rituals in the mountains and beaches of California, interviewed members of motorcycle gangs whose paths crossed Manson’s and members of his family.” Tracing Manson (1934-2017) from the early 50s through his imprisonment for the murders of Sharon Tate (1943-1969), Jay Sebring (1933-1969), Abigail Folger (1943-1969), Wojciech Frykowski (1936-1969), Steven Parent (1951-1969), Leno LaBianca (1925-1969) and Rosemary LaBianca (1929-1969), Sanders tracks down and analyzes every minute thread to try and understand the psychology of Manson and the family. Sanders’ investigation culminates in sifting through the wreckage of the gruesome murders, which have since been the subject of a legion of biographies, novels, and films like Quentin Tarantino’s (b. 1963) 2019 masterpiece Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and tries desperately to grapple with the dark figure of the family, Manson himself, and the inner workings of cults. The Family is a Sanders masterpiece, that often goes forgotten when in the context of his oeuvre and is now presented here in its rarest contemporary form. From the collection of scholar, poet and our dear friend Robin Eichele (b. 1941), noted Mimeograph Revolutionary & co-founder (with the late, great John Sinclair [1941-2024]) of the Detroit Artists’ Workshop. Signed, dated & inscribed at first paste-down page in thin black in by previous owner: “Judy: / Love for always / from the one who / will love you always / Craig / 12/18/72.” Hardcover in unclipped dust-jacket. First edition as stated at copyright page, presumed first printing though not explicated thereon. Book in relatively fine-very fine condition with minor wear to fine edges, slight smudging/staining to front and back plates, and slight discoloration due to age-toning; interior very fine throughout. Dust-jacket in relatively fine-very fine condition with moderate wear to fine edges, light smudging to front and back covers & spine, and slight age-toning. Fine-Very Fine / Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8476]

Price: $95.00