Manson in His Own Words

We called him a devil and quarantined him behind such labels as 'the most dangerous man alive.' But Charles Manson remains a shocking reminder of our own humanity gone awry. This astonishing book lays bare the life and the mind of a man whose acts left us horrified. His story provides an enormous amount of information about his life and how it led to the Tate-LaBianca murders, and reminds us of the complexity of the human condition. Born in the middle of the Depression to an unmarried fifteen-year-old, Manson lived through a bewildering succession of changing homes and substitute parents, until his mother finally asked the state authorities to assume his care when he was twelve. Regimented and often brutalized in juvenile homes, Manson became immersed in a life of petty theft, pimping, jail terms and court appearances that culminated in seven years of prison. Released in 1967, he suddenly found himself in the world of hippies and flower children, a world that not only accepted him, but even glorified his anti-establishment values. It was a combination that led, for reasons only Charles Manson can fully explain, to tragedy. Manson's story, distilled from seven years of interviews and examinations of his correspondence, provides sobering insight into the making of a criminal mind, and a fascinating picture of the last years of the sixties. No one who wants to understand that time, and the man who helped to bring it to a horrifying conclusion, can miss reading this book.

Nuel Emmons first met Charles Manson briefly when he was imprisoned for auto theft in 1956, and again under similar circumstances in 1960. Emmons then began a career as a photojournalist, contributing to a number of magazines both in the United States and Europe. In 1979, he contacted Manson and began the extensive interviews that resulted in this book. He died in 2002.