Manson Behind Scenes (3 results)

Paperback. Condition: VG+. 1st Edition. Very light edge wear and creasing to spine. VG+ paperback.

Soft cover. Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. Signed. Signed by Author(s).

Softcover. Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. [minor edgewear to covers, otherwise as-new]. Trade PB (B&W photographs, facsimile documents) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the inside front cover: "To Hal, / Best Wishes / Always, / Bill Nelson / 6-16-99." A deep dive by a self-proclaimed "investigative journalist" into the post-murder lives of the Manson Family, with chapters devoted to each of thirteen individuals (including Charles Manson himself) and often enlivened with excerpts from interviews and correspondence with the subjects. Although there is plenty of information about the Tate-LaBianca murders themselves, the book is primarily about what all the various people got up to in the succeeding decades, and is essentially Nelson's own narrative about investigating their activities, which often involved establishing personal relationships with them. The author clearly worked hard at this, over the course of decades; among the people he was able to get close to was Sharon Tate's mother Doris. The book also touts a "world exclusive" interview with William Garretson, the only survivor of the Family's murder spree; only nineteen at the time, he was the caretaker at the Cielo Drive house, and was briefly considered a suspect. Warning: the book reproduces (although not very well) a number of quite explicit crime-scene photographs -- but at the same time, assures the reader that no "bad language" is contained in the book, as he has replaced all instances of such with "XXX." Toward the end of the book, he also veers into writing about the never-solved "Zodiac" murders that took place in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s, although I'm not sure what connection he was trying to establish with the Manson killings. Nelson's c.v. as a journalist (apart from his obvious obsession with all things Manson) seems mighty thin, and as a narrative, the book is kind of all over the map, and sometimes veers into the arcane: if you want to know, for instance, all the individual dates between 1993 and 1996 that the still-incarcerated Charles "Tex" Watson had conjugal visitations from his wife (by means of which they were able to conceive four chidren), this is the book for you! Of some "associational" interest: the "Hal" to whom this copy is inscribed was agent Harold Gefsky, who was Sharon Tate's first agent when she moved to Los Angeles in 1962. Apparently self-published, and quite scarce. Signed by Author.…