asusqwertyae31

Whether you're dipping in unfamiliar or obsessively familiar with the Manson family murders, any reader will be fascinated by the artistry of this novel that reinvents those narrative atrocities in such well-crafted, artful prose that sometimes you feel as if you're reading the romantic poets as imagined by the free verse of Chuck Palaniuk. It's disconcerting and haunting and strange. "Henry," the Manson archtype, is so charismatic and compelling and narrator Mel is such a broken bird of a teenager who delivers herself to him, that right from the start the read is fraught-- you know this isn't an even match, and you know things won't end pretty. And yet the tension, the supporting cast, and the "family" dynamic is layered and tightened deftly, with precision and cunning, so you need to keep moving forward yourself, marching into the cult, the crime, and the madness no matter how much you want to turn around. The cadence of the writing is the perfect form for this function, word patterns and rhythms seem to echo Mel's own looping, slipping, desperate hold. It's a risky book, not for wimps, and it delivers. There are always lots of jumbo summer books out there where page counts far exceed my interest (these I will abandon and not post to Goodreads) so I'm always grateful to an author seeking economy of language-- here's an example of great writing also being great editing.

2022-11-14 16:50