Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties

Paperback(Large Print)

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Overview

In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most notorious criminals and life as one of his "girls."

At age fourteen Dianne Lake—with little more than a note in her pocket from her hippie parents granting her permission to leave them—became one of "Charlie’s girls," a devoted acolyte of cult leader Charles Manson. Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.

Though she never participated in any of the group’s gruesome crimes and was purposely insulated from them, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family, and eventually learned enough to join the prosecution’s case against them. With the help of good Samaritans, including the cop who first arrested her and later adopted her, the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.

While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.

Member of the Family includes 16 pages of photographs.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780062696113
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 10/24/2017
Edition description: Large Print
Pages: 576
Sales rank: 1,063,887
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Dianne Lake is a retired special-education teacher and mother of three.


Deborah Herman is the author of twelve books, an attorney, and a journalist.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Prologue 1

Part I Turn On

1 A Minnesota Childhood 9

2 Family Matters 20

3 One Stray Ash 30

4 California 39

5 How to Be-In 46

6 Hippies in Newsprint 64

7 The Note 87

8 Welcome to the Hog Farm 107

9 Someone Groovy 121

Part II Tune In

10 The Black Bus 133

11 We Are All One 147

12 Panhandling and Postulating 167

13 Snake 185

14 Spahn Ranch 199

15 Beach Boy 211

16 A Little Monkey 232

17 A Door Closes 245

18 On the Edge 257

19 Baking Soda Biscuits 268

20 Out of Sight 280

21 Preaching the White Album 290

22 A Simple Bag of Coins 305

Part III Drop Out

23 The Witches' Brew 315

24 Reclaiming My Name 334

25 My Day in Court 352

Epilogue 375

Acknowledgments 385

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