Micro Mention "Helter Skelter"

"Helter Skelter" is a long but incredibly in-depth look into the world of the Manson Family murders written by the prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi. Starting with the murders then moving through the investigation and litigation, Bugliosi spares no detail.

I touch on this idea in my full review, but could you imagine the sort of damage and mischief Manson could have gotten up to if he were born just say thirty years later, or so, and was around for our modern era and social media? I think that's the scariest thought this book inspired for me—because it isn't like people, who are like him, have stopped being born.

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"The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson--Nonfiction Review

Time for something light and fun, like the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, oh and murder—mustn’t forget the murder. Okay, so maybe not so, light and fun, but Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City” is still a good read.

What I love about this book:

So this book was recommended to me by way of; it’s about an early American serial killer who built his own “Murder Castle” while the Chicago World Fair was happening. The biography Larson writes up about H. H. Holmes is chilling. Certainly, the man was the kind of sociopath with absolutely no scruples, and on top of being a murderer, he was also a petty thief and fraudster.

What took me by surprise is that a considerable amount of this book is wholly devoted to just describing the Chicago World’s Fair’s history. Larson tells you about the fair’s organizers, the architects, setting up the fair, running the fair—and far more. He even sketches out the lives of many people directly involved with the fair with a historian’s attention to detail.

I found the bits of this book about the Ferris Wheel, which made its debut as an attraction at the World Fair of 1893, riveting. I’m generally not one to even think about Ferris Wheels in the first place—to me, they’ve always just been a vertical carousel—a somewhat amusing but ultimately bland ride. I did not realize that the original Ferris Wheel was nothing like your local small-town fair Ferris Wheel. It was 264 feet tall and had a capacity of over two thousand riders—simultaneously! This was built and operated in the 19th century, maybe near the end of but firmly still in the era of “hope this steam boiler we barely understand doesn’t explode and kill us all.”

What I don’t love about this book:

While I may like both parts of this book, it feels a whole lot like two books fused together. On one side, we’re learning about the murderous H. H. Holmes, and that’s fascinating. On the other, we’re learning about the Chicago World Fair of 1893, which I didn’t even know I wanted—but I never found myself loving the ping-ponging back and forth between the two. Holmes used the World Fair as cover for his murderous activities—to be sure—but it isn’t like he wasn’t a murderer before and after the fair.

Related to the issue of bouncing back and forth between these two topics—there didn’t feel like there was a logical flow. The reason why Larson would be talking about certain events in the murder side of the book alongside whatever interesting bit of history he would next tell you about regarding the fair never clicked for me. The only impression I got was maybe he was following a loose chronological association between events.

After the World Fair portion of this book, and we return to the premise that brought me to this book in the first place, I found myself missing the fair. Because we’re really just into the depressing details about the end of Holmes’s murder spree, which I was now no longer in the mood for because I personally was in a much lighter mindset. That’s in a nutshell why I think this should have been two books, tell the story of Holmes, sure talk about the World Fair going on around that time, but I felt it should have focused mainly on him. Certainly, there’s a contrasting element between the two sides of this book, playing off the title, but the why of it—other than for its own sake—eluded me.

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Author's Website: https://eriklarsonbooks.com/

Parting thoughts:

There is a prevailing thought that the world was somehow safer in the past, more wholesome—especially in the United States in my experience. People just didn’t do that sort of thing back then, no sir. It’s usually followed up by a statement of “we never even locked our doors in our neighborhood and nobody worried about their kids playing outside.”

I am here to tell you that the nostalgia-drenched, sanitized view of the past is bullshit. The world is and always has been a dangerous place. Prior generations may have been less cautious than we are today, but not because the world was a safer, more loving place, crack open a history book—or hell, use this book as an example. Serial killers, rapists, genocidal maniacs—oh my—have always been with us, making prey out of the unwary when least expected.

It isn’t unusual for me to go on about how astounding our technological improvements have been over the last century on this blog—but you want to know what hasn’t changed nearly as much over the previous one hundred years? People—and to steal a Scrubs reference—they were bastard coated bastards with bastard filling back then, and they are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling today.

Sure, that’s a bit cynical, but here is my argument, people—just like any other life form on this planet change slowly over generations, which isn’t so with technology. I’m old enough to remember when the “internet” was a thing that came in over a physical phone line, and to connect to it, you first had to sit there and let it scream at you for a couple minutes. That statement has no meaning to people born not generations later than me but just a decade or so younger than me.

So why is the past perceived to be so much safer than today? Because we were just less aware of the dangers around us. Think about it—it was a world with no social media, no networked databases, far less social mobility, telecommunications, or surveillance. People got their news nearly exclusively from the radio, the newspaper, a guy on tv, and neighbors. This was all compounded by the fact that people back then were far less likely to talk about icky subjects like, say—cousin Tom was accused of trafficking sex slaves. Tom could just move to the other side of the Rocky Mountains and start calling himself Jerry, and that was a viable option for disappearing. You didn’t even have to pretend to learn Spanish and fuck off to Mexico if you don’t make the national news—just cut your hair differently, go work at some gas station in Oregon for a while, and get that trafficking ring back in business.

Sorry, Tom(s). I’m just using your name as an example here. I’m sure you’re lovely people and hardly own any sex slaves… I mean, don’t own any sex slaves. Stop owning people, Tom(s). You have a real problem!

To bring this back to a more positive note—if anything—if crime statistics are believed, we’re actually safer today than ever before precisely because we’re so aware of the potential dangers out there. There are far fewer predators per capita because it’s so much more likely we’re going to catch the Tom(s) of the world. It might not seem like it, but I do believe people, despite being prickly at times, self-centered, and selfish—are for the most part good, at about 95 percent. But let me remind you that a beverage that’s 5 percent arsenic will probably kill you. So—caution is vital in life.

"Helter Skelter," by Vincent Bugliosi & Curt Gentry--Nonfiction Review

This book, “Helter Skelter,” written by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry, is the true-crime gold standard. The Manson family murders and their motivations behind their crimes were beyond the pale in ghoulishness, and at its core, this book is really about one man, Charlie Manson. It’s a biography of how one charismatic vicious cult leader set off one of the most chilling crimes of the last century.  

What I love about this book:

Since Bugliosi was the prosecuting attorney during the Manson Family murder trial, this is the ultimate insider story about the case. Bugliosi and his co-author go into exquisite detail about the twists and turns of first the crime, then investigating the crime, and then the circus that was the actual trial. It’s such an outlandish story it almost screams for a theatrical treatment, which is probably why it was made into a movie—more than once.

My favorite part of the story is the actual trial itself, which I know can sound dry. Still, there is something about a lawyer explaining exactly how the criminal process works that’s always captivated me, another reason why I like this nonfiction book. Often my problem with trials in fiction is they’re written by people who aren’t lawyers, and I’m always left wondering, is that right?

I know this isn’t very high-minded, forgiveness for all and whatnot, but I derived a certain amount of schadenfreude pleasure when finally, Manson and his “family” get what was coming to them, and their murderous make-believe world crumbled around them. As a rule of thumb, I don’t believe in the death penalty, and when it was repealed, sparing him and the girls from it, I still felt life in prison, wasting away slowly but inexorably, was a fitting punishment. 

What I don’t love about this book:

So one of the grossest things to come out of all the Manson family trial publicity is the ever-enduring inappropriate admiration for the man himself. It’s the same thing that happened with Ted Bundy. Even after hearing all he’s accused of, there are people, still, somehow, who are attracted to him.  Or sometimes it’s his philosophy, or—worst of all—both.

This happens because of how high profile the murder investigation and trial was, and when that happens, more people hear about a thing. Gather a big enough crowd of people, and eventually, you’ll strike weirdo pay dirt. Oddballs that when confronted with facts like Manson once shot a man in cold blood and is suspected of murdering and dismembering at least one other person, they’re still going to think he’s dreamy.

I’m positive Bugliosi was a fantastic lawyer. Why am I confident of this? Because of all of the copious notes upon notes he clearly took about this crime, investigation, and trial. And I hear, you dear obscure reader, metaphorically, not really—that would be weird. Anyway, you’re saying, why is this in this section? This all sounds like they are good things. They are, but it also feels like Bugliosi didn’t leave out even one single note from this book, and it shows in the length of the book. Let’s just say it’s not a quick read.   

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Parting thoughts:

So—in many ways, Manson and his followers were ahead of their time when it comes to unhinged nutters. Like a prototype Q-Anon, Manson told his followers that they were special, smart people who were aware of and needed to prepare for the coming revolution. That was what he said “Helter Skelter” meant. Specifically, there would be a race war. Supposedly black people would overthrow everything. Afterward, Manson and his family—who would have survived the revolution by hiding in the desert—would return to be the ruling class in the new world order. 

Why would they be literally the ruling family after the black revolution while being some of the most lily-white dickheads to exist? Well, this is going to come as a complete shock, but other than being a murderous asshole, Manson was also profoundly racist—who would have guessed? Anyway, he figured that black people would be capable of revolution, but he didn’t think they could create and maintain an actual society. So they would need Charlie Manson to be their King, or Emperor, or whatever the fuck he’d call himself.

All of this sounds as grandiose as it is ridiculous, and hindsight has only made it more so, not less. It does lead to my final point I want to make today though, this impulse we have—and we all have it, don’t try to fool yourself—to self-delude ourselves about the nature and consistency of objective reality isn’t a new thing.  This isn’t something that only Capitol rioters are specifically afflicted with but a feature of us as a species. It’s a bone-deep belief that reality, or the universe, or in some people’s cases—god—can be reasoned with or better yet bargained with, and the outcomes of our lives can be changed by simply wanting it bad enough. Put another way, wishing. 

This is why I go on and on about magical thinking and why it becomes exponentially more dangerous the more advanced we get as a species. It’s because charismatic and misguided individuals have way—way more power today than ever before. The last four years in the United States ought to have proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Magic makes for great fantasy but poor everyday life. Just because you want to believe something is genuine or conversely don’t want to believe something is real—the coronavirus, for instance—doesn’t make it true. This belief either, consciously or unconsciously, that reality can bend to wishes is a delusion and a dangerous one. We can only change our world through concentrated and often cooperative action. Usually, that last part requires a leader of some sort, and ask yourself, do you want to have any shadow of a doubt that leader is unglued from reality? I know I don’t. 

Remember—as the cliché goes—the bill always comes due at the end. Reality has a way of catching up eventually. Every. Time.

Micro Mention "The Devil in the White City"

This book made the Chicago’s World Fair come alive for me in a way I haven’t experienced before with other histories. Not the first World Fair, but it was the one in America that tends to be remembered the most. My favorite part is probably about the original Ferris Wheel and how it was proposed and constructed to compete with the Eiffel Tower, originally constructed in Paris as the 1889 World's Fair entrance.

The chilling details of the serial killer, H.H. Holmes, who used the fair as cover for his grisly crimes, creates a contrast so vivid it’s arresting. Holmes, not his original name, was one of the original serial killers of the modern age, as terrible and deadly as Jack the Ripper. He even had the twisted humor to rename himself, Holmes, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's intrepid fictional detective.

This preview is an Amazon Affiliate link; 

as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Author's Website: https://eriklarsonbooks.com/