5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This book is odd..., October 6, 2009
This review is from: CHARLES MANSON'S BLOOD LETTERS: --dueling with the devil (Paperback)
At the end of 'Charles Manson's Blood Letters' Richard Rubacher, the author, has written several pages of histrionic puffs for his next volume, an autobiographical memoir of his time as the teenage sex-slave of a local black gang in a rough part of New York. He is, I think, a strange fellow. This - self-published - book is rather frustrating. The text of it is only about 84 pages long, the rest being made up of the index, an excerpt of Manson being interviewed on Geraldo, a brief chronology of the Manson Family which anyone reading this book will be familiar with, and about ten pages of photographs, most of which are the envelopes and pages of several letters from Manson to the author. It includes a page of Timothy Leary's autobiography quoted with the laconic note, 'permission [to reproduce] pending'.
Rubacher had a protracted correspondence with Manson but only prints two of Manson's letters in full. They are rambling and tiring to read, often descending into (at best) opacity & (at worst) nonsense. The rest of the correspondence is described in a series of extremely brief synopses, to which Rubacher appends psychological commentaries. As so often with self-published work, alas, proof-reading is not thorough, & at quite a few points the reader simply can't tell whether a thought is Manson's or Rubacher's. The psychological insights aren't particularly penetrating, unfortunately. The structure loops back on itself creating a repetitious feel.
In a nutshell, Rubacher wrote to Manson after seeing him on Geraldo. Soon he was telling Charlie he wanted to write a book about him. After visiting Manson (probably the most interesting part of the book) in jail, Charlie sent Rubacher several boxes of the fan-mail & Family correspondence he'd been sent up till then (this was 1976). As is so often the way the two fell out, Manson feeling Rubacher was stringing him along. Manson demanded the return of the letters. Rubacher, for reasons that he fails to make clear, refused. Manson sent 'Elf' (Dennis Rice) to reclaim them, but Rubacher, using, as he's proud to proclaim, Manson's mind-manipulation techniques, managed to send Elf away - & managed to forestall another of Charlie's potential killers some time later in a similar fashion. The correspondence between Manson & Rubacher fizzled out in the Nineties with no book having been written & the letters unreturned.
Really this book needed to be six times longer, and filled with verbatim quotations from Manson's letters, Rubacher's letters & the fan letters, & a more considered analysis. As it stands it adds very little to the body of Manson literature, & is a rather melodramatic take on 'Mind Control Charlie'. I didn't feel that Rubacher was being quite honest about why he was fascinated by Manson. He claims it was because of his interest in uncovering Manson's mind-control techniques, but none of his interaction with Manson seems directed towards exploring them. He ends with a ten-point list of Manson's usual techniques but it's extremely facile and obvious, and rather refutes what I believe this book is really about: a claim for its author's special sensitivity & perceptiveness.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Get Your facts right Rubacher, January 24, 2011
This review is from: CHARLES MANSON'S BLOOD LETTERS: --dueling with the devil (Paperback)
I've read most of the important and famous books on Charles Manson for many years now and I always look forward to finding something new on this subject. And so it was ,as I received My copy of 'Blood Letters' in the post. What a disappointment then when I read page 1, I knew this was going to be rubbish ... Not only does the author not bother to mention Voytek Frykowski by name but He also refers to Steve Parent as being the caretaker of Cielo Drive. If such poor research occurs on page 1 , one cannot be in any doubt that what is to follow is going to be rubbish... And so it was. I persevered, but by the time I finished this book , I was left wondering .... WHY ? Unless You are a fanatical collector of all things Manson I would recommend that You steer clear of this rambling nonsense ... Who do I see about a refund ?
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Astounding, July 27, 2009
This review is from: CHARLES MANSON'S BLOOD LETTERS: --dueling with the devil (Paperback)
This work has some important psychological insights into how one can exercise power over other people and get them to do the most evil of things. This understanding applies not only to criminal psychology but to infamous dictators eg-Hitler,Stalin, Sadam Husain and your life in awareness of controlling people.
This book should serve to start the study of how controlling individuals are generated with hope of averting such disasters in the future for all mankind.
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