She Could Be So Charming One Minute and Brutally Ruthless in the Next…”The Girls”, by Emma Cline

The GirlsIf the reader is looking for a light-hearted novel to read and relax, Emma Cline’s debut novel, The Girls, might not be a good one to choose. But for most readers it will be a very interesting comparison to the other novels that have been written about the subject. The Girls is a sort of explanation from the woman’s point of view as to why the women, or girls as they were very young, chose to have any part of Charles Manson and the cult they became, to go on a horrendous, murderous crime spree. Most previous works have focused on how Charles Manson got these seemingly ordinary girls to do the awful acts that they committed at his request. Cline delves into who they were before the murders and who some are as they are older.

As one character Evie, exemplifies, she was 14 when she came into contact with Russell’s cult. She is going through puberty, easily influenced by the other girls who seem to be so sure of themselves. She finds an immediate attraction to the group. Another, Suzanne, who is an extension of real-life Susan Atkins, is a different story. The character Suzanne is like Susan who was both troubled and attractive, so she used her ability to read people’s desires to her advantage. She could be so charming one minute and brutally ruthless in the next. She chose power and belonging over having any control over any part of her life, including her body. Cline chooses to show the many facets of Suzanne’s (Susan’s) personality, rather than just simply make her the “bad girl” as other works have done. Many agree that Cline’s portrayal of Susan through Suzanne is probably more like what the true person was.

The one thing the reader may notice is that Russell (Manson) is not charismatic or even interesting as a person on his own. He preyed on girls who had issues and flaws, who were wanting attention, or who needed to belong to something…..anything! Other sociopaths do not get the continuing notoriety of Charles Manson, and Emma Cline honed in on an explanation for that…….. the others did not have a group of seemingly “normal” young women following them around doing their bidding. It seems there is very little left to say about Manson, but still plenty of information to be told about The Girls.

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A Tale of a Very Tragic Accident…”LaRose”, by Louise Erdrich

LaRoseAs author of another amazing book, LaRose is the latest effort by author Louise Erdrich. It is another brilliantly written piece about life as a Native American Indian, and how the culture influenced the lives of two families during their brush with an unspeakable tragedy. Author Erdrich’s books attempt to tell the story of a civilization that was at worst, almost annihilated. And it worked best because she is a Native American Indian by heritage and is a woman.

Erdrich creates a combination of subjects, placing liked and unliked in such a way that each is greater because of it’s placement. Her words play off each other to brilliantly describe her subjects in their best and worst light. “Her language is rich but plain. Her sentences conjure a face, a town, a situation with a transparent power.”

In LaRose, a man named Landreaux, while hunting, shot the stag in his sights, but the deer took off running unscathed. To his horror, he had shot the five year old son of his good friend and neighbor. Filled with unimaginable anguish, after much consultation with his advisors, Landreaux and his wife decide that the only way they can live with what has happened is to give their friend and neighbors their own five year old son, LaRose, to try to make amends for their loss. In this way, Erdrich creates a magical narrative that is emotionally haunting about a tale of a very tragic accident, a need for justice followed by a profound act of atonement…….all actions with roots heavily embedded in Native American culture.

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