50 years after the notorious Tate-LaBianca murders, Charles Manson and
the Manson Family continue to haunt and fascinate America. No crime or
criminal has touched the social, political, or cultural life of America
in the same way.
Creepy crawling was the Manson Family's practice of secretly entering
someone's home, and without harming anyone, leaving only a trace of
evidence that they had been there, some reminder that the sanctity of
the private home had been breached.
Now, author Jeffrey Melnick reveals just how much the Family creepy
crawled their way through Los Angeles in the sixties and then on through
American social, political, and cultural life for fifty years, firmly
lodging themselves in our minds. Even now, it is almost impossible to
discuss the sixties, teenage runaways, sexuality, drugs, music,
California, or even the concept of family without referencing Manson and
his girls.
Not another Charles Manson history, Charles Manson's Creepy Crawl
explores how the Family weren't so much outsiders as emblematic of the
Los Angeles counterculture freak scene, and how Manson worked to connect
himself to the mainstream of the time. Ever since they spent two nights
killing seven residents of Los Angeles--what we now know as the
Tate-LaBianca murders--the Manson family has rarely slipped from the
American radar for long.
From Emma Cline's The Girls to the TV show Aquarius, as well as two
major films in 2019, including Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood, the family continues to rivet America. What is it about
Charles Manson and his family that captivates us still?
Author Jeffrey Melnick sets out to answer this question in this
fascinating and compulsively readable cultural history of the Family and
their influence from 1969 to the present. Previously published in
hardcover under the title Creepy Crawling this paperback edition has a
new epilogue.
