Member of the family My story of Charles Manson, life inside his cult, and the darkness that ended the sixties

After the success of The Girls (2016), Emma Cline's debut novel about the Manson family, Lake's compelling remembrance of her years as a teenage follower of Charles Manson will find an eager audience beyond cult enthusiasts and fans of celebrity murder. Lake was just 14 when she became the youngest member of the family. The product of negligent hippies who shunted their daughter from suburban Minnesota to the Hog Farm commune, Lake makes it clear just how easy it was for her to fall under the sway of a grandiose, slap-happy weirdo in a buckskin vest. She takes us from the family's salad days of LSD-fueled orgies, celebrity guests, and the occasional beating, to their supremely paranoid flameout in the California desert, where they learned to kill and attempted to foment a race war. Without sacrificing scintillating details about the family's birthing rituals or underage prostitution, Lake offers both a human portrait of her notorious colleagues and a thoughtful take on counterculture sexism: Manson's understanding of gender relations wasn't too far off from her dad's.--Williamson, Eugenia Copyright 2017 Booklist

In this disturbing, courageous memoir, Lake, a former special education teacher, recounts her dark journey as the youngest member of Charles Manson's "family." She was sexually abused by her grandfather as a child. Her hippie parents allowed her to attend concerts and parties on her own at a young age. When she met Charles Manson at age 14 she was easy prey for the charismatic, messianic con man. She writes of the environment in which she lived with many others. In the hothouse atmosphere of isolation and heavy LSD use, few of Manson's followers balked when his ramblings shifted from talk of "love" and "freedom" to "race war" and "Helter Skelter." Even after Manson raped Lake and later kicked her out of the group, she remained in his thrall. As the family careens toward the Tate and La Bianca murders, Lake's story grows vague, as she did not participate in the gruesome event. Until that point, however, Lake never flinches from the grimness of her situation. She also recalls moments of happiness and community she experienced with the other Manson women ("Lynette and a girl named Patty stroked my hair and passed me a joint"), who confessed their crimes to her. Her testimony, at age 17, helped convict Manson. This is a moving, intense insider's view of the cult of Manson. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.