Sway, by Zachary Lazar, was an odd book. I was never quite sure how I felt about it. I’m not entirely certain it knows how it feels about itself. It’s not a biography or a history, there’s not nearly enough information given. It’s not historical fiction, either, as the characters are not particularly well fleshed out. Or fleshed out at all, in fact. It felt to me as though Lazar provided a frame, or skeleton and those familiar with the people and events would fill in the rest, or like he had taken an internal movie, and written down these scenes as he imagined they took place. However, I’ve been told by someone who’s done some studying of this era and the people involved that many these scenes/portrayals are not true to type, so it’s more of an alternate history and anyone familiar with the subject is more likely to be struggling with the disparity than anything.
I suppose I should give you some idea of the subject matter so you have
some idea of what I muttering about now, no? It’s about 3 of the events that signalled the end of the ‘peace, love and granola’ aspect of the 60′s – to whit: the Manson murders, the death of Brian Jones (a founding member of the Stones who by that time was no longer in the band), and the murder by the Hell’s Angels (who were acting as the Stone’s security) of a member of the audience during the Altamont concert. And it all is touched by the films of Kenneth Anger. Or something. Bobby Beausoleil (a member of the Manson gang, and the only member Lazar follows in this book) was filmed by Anger, as were The Rolling Stones. Although how all of these things relate or are supposed to relate is never really explained – Lazar lets the tape in his head play out without commentary or elaboration.
I will say this for Lazar – he does do an amazing job of setting and describing those scenes, they are a very vivid series of vignettes. Just the same, one feels that the story – or his version of the story – would have been better served by connecting up these scenes better. There’s no flow at all, just a series of jerky jumps from one scene to another, set in vaguely chronological order. And the very simple language and sentence structure – while lending itself well to the visual aspect – does come off as patronizingly stereotypical at times. There’s only a very small set of people I’d recommend this to: those who are a) familiar with the events and people and b) like to argue with their books (and you know you’re out there). To those people I’d say this book was a must. Everyone else – you can find a much better use of your money and time.
