Book Chat 20: Zachary Lazar/Sway

Evil Editor said... I was gonna review the book this morning, as it's been a couple weeks, but instead I spent the last half hour watching Kenneth Anger films. My favorites are the trailers for the DVD compilations of his films.

Robin S. said... Where can you find them? Never heard of the guy before this novel Ooops. Never mind. I just Googled and found them all over hell's half acre...

Evil Editor said... YouTube has the films that are mentioned in the book. The video quality is low. The films basically consist of images; don't watch expecting plot.

sylvia said... I actually quite enjoyed watching Scorpio Rising because it was such a critical stage of the book. So I was watching these guys with the motorcycles and the "star" who felt he was the only one with the truth. It was interesting within that context. The juxaposition of the music surprised me, to be honest.

Dave F. said... I heard of Kenneth Anger. There was a "film arts society" at college that showed all sorts of experimental films. Most of them awful. And they showed Warhol (he's a hometown boy) and I saw the first (what would now be called test runs) of Godspell.

sylvia said... I read an interview he did - it was interesting. He seems pretty bitter and a lot of complaints about music videos etc stealing his techniques. Then I read this bit and realised the author was referring to the interview in the book:
As for Anita Pallenberg, however, Anger told me that 'she thought she was a witch, but she was just a bitch, if you ask me'. Yet Pallenberg is scheduled to host the reception for Anger's exhibition in September.

Evil Editor said... I wonder if I can get her to host a reception for the Evil Editor Films Exhibition.

Dave F. said... When I watched the you tube of SWAY by the Stones, it reminded me of just how controversial they were. I never thought of Mick Jagger as androgynous but when he was young and pretty, they really played that up in the stage show.

Evil Editor said... Are there any characters in this book who were the author's creation, I wonder?

Robin S. said... I was wondering this myself - about the characters - as with the early girlfriends of Brian Jones et al. Not talking about Marianne F. and the later women around the Stones. If the author comes, I'd like to ask if he had 'pushback', if that's the word, after this novel was written, from any of the living characters.

Evil Editor said... Yes, I'd like to know if the publisher or author sent copies to any of the characters.

sylvia said... Everything that I could look up and verify, seemed to be referenceable. I really don't understand at all how or why this is promoted as fiction, to be honest.
There are things that may or may not be true (did Bobby steal the 8mm tapes?) but certainly Anger believed that he did. And simply slapping "fiction" on the cover wouldn't stop a libel case, if Bobby objected to it being presented as having happened.

Evil Editor said... I assume all the dialogue is made up, and that the author used references to get the times and places and historic events right.

sylvia said... But you can recreate conversations in non-fiction - in fact Helter Skelter, which was a clear reference for the book, did exactly that. Nothing Like a Dame had quite a useful linguistic marker. The author used "she said" for quotes which were somehow verifiable and "she says" for recreated conversation, based on what was "probably" said.

Zachary said... Hi. The author here. Glad that this sent people to Anger's films, though he sent me a vicious letter some time ago. As far as fiction-non-fiction, why must books fit into these little slots? With films, we have documentaries (just the facts), feature films (all made up), and the biopic (an unholy mix). We go into these movies with different kinds of expectations. There aren't many good biopics, but the good ones succeed by giving a convincing and illuminating account of what they're about. Or so I think. I wish the book world were a little less stodgy.

sylvia said... We've done a few books where the lines between fact and fiction are blurred. I've complained about all of them. Mind, I think I feel the same about movies so I'm just a hopeless case :D

Dave F. said... This is a juxtaposition that I never thought about. A "six degrees" link between the Stones and Charlie Manson. A connection between the ferment of music and art and the worst in society.

sylvia said... Yes, I really liked how it was all interconnected. How trivial things had a domino effect. I also found the prose very dreamy, so after reading for a while it was like I needed to shake myself out of a fog.

Dave F. said... This was the summer of Woodstock and the Moon landing. It was 40 years ago.

Robin S. said... Ok. this has made me look around some. Normally celebs bore me rigid, to be honest, perhaps because I've been behind the scenes with a few celeb wannabes or also rans or supposed up-an-comers. But this set of pics is a freakout - check out Anita Pallenberg NOW - about halfway down the page. Christ, aging sucks.

Blogger sylvia said... Wow, those photos of Pallenberg are great, Robin. What a contrast.

Evil Editor said... Is it possible Bobby didn't commit that murder?

Dave F. said... No, I think Beausoliel did commit murder under Manson's influence. This is an evocation of the chaos of the 60's ...

sylvia said... Bobby has admitted he killed the man (whether there was a drug transaction involved on the other hand is not clear)

Zachary said... The point of writing it for me was to render all these bizarre and extreme events--and coincidences--in a way that was plausible. The real story was kind of "unrealistic." So the challenge was to make it realistic, also to make the public figures seem like human beings, to try to imagine them.

As for B. Beausoleil, I don't think we'll ever know the whole real story because he's told so many different versions of it, but he has admitted to killing Gary Hinman. I do think his account of that is credible. I also think it makes slightly more sense of the more or less senseless motives for the murders that came after. We can never be sure, but my take is that underneath the incredible drug-warped weirdness of the Manson family there is a more mundane story about people running out of money, dealing drugs to make some, and those drug deals going very badly.

Robin S. said... I wonder if there's a tie in here with the early Stones kinds of scenes you wrote so well about the working and working in the stone cold apartment to get the sound right and the not wanting 'real jobs' because they were reaching in the dark and working hard for a feeling of 'more'. But if this wanting more doesn't work out, or you're being led by a loon, horrible things can and do happen...

Evil Editor said... I found the whole story credible in the book. I understand you're working on a novel connecting Bruce Springsteen with Jeffrey Dahmer?

Robin S. said... Zachary, did you get any after-the-fact pushback from anyone other than the angry/vicious letter from Kenneth A?

Zachary said... No pushback from anyone but Anger, Robin. Thankfully! Very much doubt the Stones read or even heard about it.

Dave F. said... The setup of Beausoliel was amazing. Manson twisted his followers into doing wrong without guilt. Young people were searching for philosophical islands (to use a ship analogy) through this time. They had thrown off the religion and beliefs of their parents and were adrift. Yellow Submarine was 1968 and Kent State was not even a year later. No one in the Manson family was a rocket scientist. They were ordinary kids, lost and searching for something to believe in. As I recall Helter Skelter was to be the complete dissolution of society into tribal warring factions. Manson intended the Tate/Labianco murders as the "trigger" for class and race warfare.

Robin S. said... The page I thought brought home the feeling of the era in one piece is on page 184 of the paperback. The drowning scene. It's one of those complete 'world in one look' scenes. I really enjoyed it. Marked it and reread it.

Evil Editor said... It says no one ever said what happened. [re; drowning] Didn't anyone ask anyone what happened?

Robin S. said... If I'm right, no one ever quite knew what happened, or each had a different version in their heads.

Dave F. said... People think death of rock stars by drugs is modern and it's not.

Robin S. said... Haven't you been at parties where all kinds of shit happened but it seemed unimportant because you were high?

sylvia said... They've recently reopened the case on the drowning, actually.

sylvia said... Kenneth Anger seems just generally vicious. I actually thought you portrayed him better than the bits and pieces I read afterwards. On the other hand, it must be deeply disconcerting to read someone else ascribing motives and desires to your actions.

Dave F. said... If you think about it Zachary, Mick Jagger was at the far end of the "six degrees" line and peripheral to Manson. Like Robin asked, have you ever been at a party where something happened and you weren't involved and didn't see anything. That's Jagger. I remember being at Frat Parties and not seeing a Brother hauled off to the hospital for overdrinking. We make these connections afterward.

sylvia said... I think I spent as much time browsing the web for background information as I did reading the book. I mean that in a good way - I knew various pieces of the story and others (like Anger's films) were a complete mystery, so it was interesting to fill in those gaps.

Zachary said... The internet is a double-edged sword. Makes it easy to do intensive research, but also is a real distraction whenever I read anything. Let's look up X, etc. Or even worse, let's check our email.

Dave F. said... Research is endless and the internet is a daunting place.

sylvia said... That's why I like the book chats. In this case, it meant I had a good reason to waste an afternoon reading old Rolling Stones articles ;)

Dave F. said... Sylvia clued us into this:

sylvia said... Zachary: you mentioned (er, somewhere, I didn't save the link) that a real breakthrough on writing the novel was when you worked out how to order the events. Can you elaborate? Did you mean that you broke away from a straight chronological retelling so that we could spend more time with each character?

Zachary said... I originally had it in chronological order, starting with Anger's childhood. Characterization was still there, but it lacked suspense and flow. Cutting it up and shuffling it was very easy to do. 1

Evil Editor said... It was certainly more riveting starting with the Bobby/Charlie chapter.

Evil Editor said... It was interesting to read passages in which specific songs were being discussed without being named. Usually it was obvious which song, sometimes a guess. I assume to name them or use last names might have caused trouble?

Zachary said... I didn't mention the song names because I wanted to try to evoke them from scratch, so the reader would as much as possible experience them in a new way. It wasn't a question of legal worries. It was the same with the character's names. I used first names only, not for legal reasons but just to try to work against the preconception we all have when we hear "Mick Jagger" or "Charles Manson"

sylvia said... I mainly felt that I probably knew the songs but I wasn't always sure. I agree that getting fed the references piecemeal made it seem more like seeing the song sound/lyrics as they were created rather than a knee-jerk personal response, "that song that they played the night that Jeff kissed me, when I was 14" type reaction.

Dave F. said... Zachary, when did you first find the link between the Manson Family and the Stones...

Zachary said... Dave, I found it while reading Stones biographies (lots of them). Anger appeared in several of them, always with a mention of his ties to Beasoleil and therefore to Manson. I was surprised that no one had jumped on this before, at least to the extent I did.

Evil Editor said... What is it Keith Richards does that makes his guitar sound so distinctive on songs like Honky Tonk Women and Jumping Jack Flash and Brown Sugar? It doesn't seem to get copied like everything else that sounds great.

Zachary said... Keith's sound on those songs is done in open G tuning (I think), using just 5 strings. But the thing that makes Keith sound like Keith is a glorious mystery....

sylvia said... My copy of the book has Manson on the cover instead of the Stones, which surprised me.

Evil Editor said... It was an experiment to see who would sell more books.

Zachary said... Sylvie must be in the UK?

sylvia said... Zach: I bought it from Amazon UK, yes. I didn't realise that was the difference. You'd think the Stones would be more likely on the UK cover not less, though wouldn't you?

Robin S. said... Zachary, how long did it take you to write the book and then decide on edits, etc?

Zachary said... Four years, Robin. The edits were at the very very end. I am going to have to run, but thanks everybody for reading and commenting--this is awesome! I have a new book coming out next week, so please check it out.

Robin S. said... Thanks for coming, Zachary.

Evil Editor said... Thanks for coming.

Dave F. said... I would love to stay longer but I have to make a noon appointment. I enjoyed the book. It made me look back on those times in very different ways than I had become accustomed used to.

sylvia said... Thanks Zachary! It's great to get such a personal view of a book! And thanks Evil Editor for setting it up!

Evil Editor said... I was just looking at reader reviews for Zachary's first novel, Aaron, Approximately. Sounds good. About characters in the 80s instead of 60s, but presumably not real people.

sylvia said... This looks like the new one? Evening's Empire: The Story of My Father's Murder

sylvia said... Haha, I just looked up Sway on Amazon.co.uk and it says Frequently Bought Together Customers buy this book with Lush Life by Richard Price

Evil Editor said... Two of our better books.

Evil Editor said... Not much of a turnout for this one. Then again it's less chaotic with fewer people. Hope Z didn't think it was a waste.

Robin S. said... I was surprised there were only four of us for this one. Really surprised. FH couldn't make it, or she would've been here.

sylvia said... It can get overwhelming with more people although I am a bit surprised that there was just the four of us. I half-expected a bunch of late comers who forgot to change their clocks. You could put his new book onto the list to make showing up for this one worth his time?

Evil Editor said... Or his previous one.

Robin S. said... Hey- EE - soon they'll have YOU connected with both authors, through the chats...

Evil Editor said... Better the authors than the characters.