Sympathy for the Devil

Abstract

Page 18 American Book Review Sympathy for the Devil Jeffrey R. Di Leo Jesus Coyote Harold Jaffe Raw Dog Screaming Press http://rawdogscreaming.com 148 pages; paper, $13.95 While his life before 1967 was far from ordinary , it was not front-page news. He was the son of a sixteen-year-old prostitute. His mother was sent to prison for robbery when he was five. His early years were spent in reform schools and homes for boys, and he was in prison by age eighteen. The next fifteen years he would spend in and out of federal prisons for a growing list of crimes that included pimping, forgery, and interstate auto theft. Finally, on March 21, 1967, over his own objections, he was paroled. Up until this point, the general public was unaware of this young man and his history of recidivism . But just two-and-a-half years later, the name Charles Manson would be infamous around the nation and his crimes would be reported internationally . The widespread media attention would result in Americans knowing more about a man who has spent the majority of his life incarcerated than they do about most US presidents. It is within this hyper-mediated contextual field of fact and rumor that “docufictionalist” master Harold Jaffe sets his fourteenth book and third novel, Jesus Coyote. Like two of his most recent works, False Positive (2002) and 15 Serial Killers (2003), Jaffe’s new novel examines the moral psychology and media construction of “extreme” individuals. However, unlike those previous works, which consider a number of individuals and events, Jesus Coyote deals almost exclusively with the Manson “family” murders. As with his other “treatments” of extreme criminal activity, Jaffe focuses attention more on the media depictions and public responses to criminals and their crimes than on the criminals themselves. Through fictionalized witness testimonies, phone transcripts, press conferences, and interrogations, Jaffe re-mediates many of the people affiliated with the Manson family’s actions. While the names and chronology have been changed, many of the “facts” and “rumors” associated with the two-and-a-halfyear period between Manson’s release from prison in March of 1967 to his re-arrest in December of 1969 for his connection with a series of brutal murders are clearly identifiable in the novel. Jaffe’s hyper-cool, postmodern narrative technique is utilized to good effect, as is the stylistic variety that presents differing points of view on the murders. The basic “facts” upon which Jaffe’s docufiction relies concern the formation of the Manson family and murders for which they were convicted. When Manson was released from a California prison in 1967, he was dropped into the epicenter of the “Summer of Love,” San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. There, a small group out of the thousands of resident “flower people” founded a commune at the Spahn movie ranch. Jaffe brilliantly leads his reader through this era from the perspective of key members of Manson’s family.Against a background of ample sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, Jaffe outlines the series of events that would set Manson on the trail of criminal infamy and cultural stardom. On August 9, 1969, pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four guests—Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski, and Steven Parent—were brutally murdered in Los Angeles. The scene of the crime was a house that Tate and her husband, famed film director Roman Polanski, were renting, and the former residence of Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher (a man who had refused to help Manson forward his music career). The following night, another couple was brutally murdered in their Los Angeles home—Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. On December 1, 1969, several of Charles Manson’s followers—Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel , and Leslie Van Houten—were arrested for the Tate-LaBianca murders. At the time of their arrest, Manson had been in prison since October 12 for arson. Soon he, too, was charged in connection with the murders. Rather than dwelling on the “factual” details of the murders, Jaffe’s novel focuses on the media coverage of the events. “The mass murder in Joya Grove featuring the beautiful pregnant actress Naomi Self occurred...