The Manson Women and Me
Page 32
Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo.
Squeaky Fromme (left) and Catherine “Gypsy” Share are shown outside the courtroom during the January 1970 trial of Manson, Watson, and the three women.
AP Photo/David F. Smith File.
Susan Atkins at age 54. Eight years later, in 2009, she died in prison of brain cancer.
Photo courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Charles “Tex” Watson at age 61.
Photo courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kaye, shown here in 1996, worked closely with prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in the 1970 trial.
AP Photo/ Michael Caulfield.
Charles Manson at age 80 in 2014.
Photo courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Acknowledgments
Much of my gratitude goes to my friends who have been so good to me during this book’s long, difficult, and sometimes painful gestation period. If I had been in a twenty-year, on-and-off relationship with a demanding man—a man who often scared me, made me weep, a man who frequently caused sleepless nights and from whom I learned some of life’s most painful lessons, I trust they would have told me to dump the guy years ago. Not one of my friends ever told me to abandon this project—instead, they often told me they thought it was a valuable endeavor and perhaps even worth the suffering.
Unlike other writers I know, I generally don’t talk about what I’m writing while I’m writing it, and I don’t send pages, chapters, or, with a few exceptions, even final manuscripts to friends. Maybe it’s the introvert in me. Or maybe I’m afraid if I share too early someone else’s voice will be in my head making it difficult for me to hear my own with any confidence. At the other end of the journey, if I share too late, I’ll be too exhausted to welcome input. This is not to say I’ve been without editorial help, especially in the later stages of the book.
First on that list is my daughter, Caitlin Meredith. Having a daughter who is also a writer and a litigation consultant with a similar worldview (though different enough to provide a much-needed perspective) has been invaluable. She has helped me with various aspects of this book, from a foray into the badlands of the Mojave Desert, to the final stages of the manuscript. In addition to her critical feedback she is a natural-born problem-solver and the most resourceful person I know.
I am indebted to Christopher Noel for editing my almost-final manuscript and to Annette Brehmer, my friend since the seventh grade, whose eleventh-hour proofing of the final manuscript was a lifesaver. I’m grateful to Melinda Worth Popham, my in case of (writing) emergency friend, for her assorted and useful remedies. She’s always been available when I most need her.
To Carole Marcus for her loyalty and support through the many chapters of our long friendship. To Anne Taylor, whose friendship helped me keep my head above water when full immersion in this project threatened to drown me. To Elizabeth Spinner, my English usage genius; to Joann Ruskin for her diagnostic expertise in the early stages of this project.
To Michael Krasny, my treasured friend and liaison with the established literary world. Without Michael my work might have remained safely tucked away in my sock drawer.
Just as I’ve had my own editorial department in the form of a daughter, I’ve had the help of my own IT team in the form of a son, Ben Holbert. In spite of putting in a full day as the director of technology of a school district, he always answered his mother’s panicky calls and within a matter of minutes solved the problem and saved the day. (When I was writing the chapter on Haight-Ashbury, I realized that I had been pushing him, my new baby boy, in his stroller on the same blocks in the same year that the newly paroled Charles Manson was prowling the streets for young girls. My joy with my infant, a peace symbol embroidered on his onesie, symbolized what the Haight had been; Manson’s particular kind of menace symbolized what the Haight was becoming.)
I want to thank my agent, Suzy Evans, with the Dijkstra Literary Agency. Her early enthusiasm for this book mattered more than she probably knows. I have to thank two of my former editors—Linda Xiques and Wendy Lapides—who nurtured me when I was still green and instilled confidence in me that persisted long after I stopped writing for them. I lost Wendy to Cornwall, England, but Linda has been a valuable sounding board in the later stages of this book. I’m grateful to my Kensington editor Michaela Hamilton whose belief in the value of asking “why” launched this book.
I am indebted to Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel for helping me understand the treacherous process by which the Charles Mansons of this world lure young people who are at vulnerable times in their lives.
I’m grateful to Stephen Kay for generously giving his time when I was learning the criminal justice aspects of this case.
Finally, infinite gratitude to my husband, Dr. Larry Meredith, a man who, in his professional life, is committed to evidence-based approaches to public health but in his personal life, at least when it involves his wife, a man who consistently relies on blind faith as a guiding principle.