Family
By Micol Ostow
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
I have always been broken. I could have died. And maybe it would have been better if i had.
It is a day like any other when seventeen-year-old Melinda hits the road for San Francisco, leaving behind her fractured home life and a constant assault on her self-esteem. Henry is the handsome, charismatic man who comes upon her, collapsed on a park bench, and offers love, a bright new consciousness, and—best of all—a family. One that will embrace her and give her love. Because family is what Mel has never really had. And this new family, Henry's family, shares everything. They share the chores, their bodies, and their beliefs. And if Mel truly wants to belong, she will share in everything they do. No matter what the family does, or how far they go.
Told in episodic verse, Family is a fictionalized exploration of cult dynamics, loosely based on the Manson Family murders of 1969. It is an unflinching look at people who are born broken, and the lengths they'll go to to make themselves "whole" again.
Micol Ostow
Micol Ostow has written over fifty works for readers of all ages, including projects based on properties like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Mean Girls. In addition to Nancy Drew, she currently writes the bestselling Riverdale novels and comics based on the original Archie Comics characters. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two daughters, piles and piles of books, and all the streaming channels. In her past life she may have been a teen sleuth. Visit Micol online at MicolOstow.com.
Read more from Micol Ostow
30 Guys in 30 Days Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mean Girls: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGettin' Lucky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrush du Jour Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fear the Funhouse (One-Shot) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Family
Related ebooks
Tangled Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rules of Rain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bliss Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dead@17 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalf in Love with Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Hear the Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fake Plastic Girl Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Poor Little Dead Girls Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Overnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Girls of Gettysburg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes from My Captivity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After the Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Callie and the Cult Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Patron Saint of Butterflies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sticks and Stones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prank Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Disenchanted Princess Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Violent Delights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Mirror Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGood Girls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Was Looking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Blame the Music Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Twisted Summer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bitch Posse: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ricochet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo One Else Can Have You Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beat the Turtle Drum Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Evil Within: Book One in the Witches of Blackstone Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
YA Historical For You
East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Game On!: Video Game History from Pong and Pac-Man to Mario, Minecraft, and More Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Luxe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of Mankind (Illustrated Edition): History of the Human Civilization Retold for Children Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Farewell to Manzanar Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hole in My Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Witch of Blackbird Pond: A Newbery Award Winner Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Surviving the Angel of Death: The True Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chain of Gold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chain of Thorns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Gatsby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Librarian of Auschwitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Betsy and the Great World/Betsy's Wedding: Betsy-Tacy Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chain of Iron Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Kids Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blue Castle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Whipping Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romanov Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On the Come Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ophelia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dweller on Two Planets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJane of Lantern Hill Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Family
29 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Abused teenage girl runs away from home to San Francisco and ends up with Charles Manson-like "family." Though the ending disappointed me a bit, this is an exceptional novel in verse. Intense, disturbing and quite terrifying.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soooo unsettling and upsetting, family is the story of Mel, a seventeen-year-old who's left her abusive stepfather behind and headed to San Francisco, where she meets Henry, a man the author has based on the infamous Charles Manson.famliy is loosely based on the Manson family and the murders the group committed at Manson's direction in the 60s, and is suitably dark and chilling. Henry, like Manson, is charming, charismatic and manipulative, and through Mel's free-verse narration, the reader gets an idea of how appealing his message of love and freedom was to such a 'broken' (her word) individual. Taking Mel's journey from relief at finding someone who claims to want to protect her to dawning horror at what she and the others in her 'family' have been sent to do is an unpleasant yet powerful journey.This story also made me wonder how close it was to the actual Manson family murders (pretty darn close - Ostow even includes quotes from family members' interviews), and as a result, I spent an evening reading many articles online about them. I'm sure I'm now on a couple of government watchlists...Recommended for older teens, due to drug use, and sexual and violent content.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Micol Ostow's family is loosely based on the Manson Family murders (and Charles Manson's cult) of 1969. family's main character (and narrator) is seventeen-year-old Melinda Jensen a girl who's run away to escape abuse when she meets Henry (the stand-in for Manson). Told in free verse poetry, familychooses to examine Mel's past as well as her introduction to and life in Henry's 'family.'The 'family' lives together, sleeps together, eats together and shares everything. They gather food for their meals, wash the clothes, everyone has a chore, something to do.To really be a part of her new family--and succeed at leaving the old one behind--Mel has to take part in everything Henry and his 'family' have to offer.No matter how far they might go . . . or what she Mel might be called to do in the name of the family.Because family is told through Mel, we only get her perspective on things. She usually feels . . . disconnected or removed from everything, including that which is happening in her life. It's easy to see why a girl who had suffered abuse like Mel and left to be free, would fall in with Henry.Mel's disconnection from things makes sense given the situation, but at times it keeps the reader from really connecting with the story. We never quite get why Henry is so enigmatic and attractive to all of these people. Why it is that everyone's so willing to do what he says.family is more a look at a girl in Henry's family than it is a look at Henry's (re Manson's) family. Readers do understand how (if not why) things operate in the group and the poetry gives a real sense of who Melinda is--and how she got that way, though. The glimpses into the way that the family operates, do give the reader the opportunity to see the little ways (that are not so little in the end) that members are controlled--the girls especially. It's Melinda's immersion in the family--and therefore her lack of reaction to most of these things--that while sometimes give them more impact, also the reader from finding out more.Those looking for a true telling of the Manson murders--or the people involved--via YA fiction, might be slightly disappointed. But if you go into family realizing how much of it is a story about a girl who thought Henry was going to save her . . . and then found the dark side to everything, it's a great read.MIcol Ostow's poetry is beautiful (and capitalization choices that I love). Even if you aren't one to normally read verse novels (YA or otherwise), do give family a chance.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This novel told in lyric verse will make your skin crawl.Of course, what else would you expect from a story based on the Manson Family murders?FAMILY chronicles the life of seventeen-year-old Melinda Jensen from the time she leaves home, to when she is found on a park bench by charismatic Henry, and through her time with Henry and her family — the young men and women who live on an abandoned movie set (“the ranch”) outside of L.A. Melinda, a broken girl having suffered abuse at the hands of her stepfather (and neglect at the hands of her mother) is easily charmed by Henry, and the love she receives both from him and from her new brothers and sisters. Henry is her father, her brother, her lover. He is God, a prophet, and it won’t be long before he has Melinda and her sisters wound so tightly around his finger that they will do anything in his name.Micol Ostow‘s latest is chilling, to say the least. Those who are familiar with the Manson murders and the cult surrounding them will find lots of similarities — many scenes, as they say, “ripped from the headlines.” But the author takes the story beyond history, gets into the heart of Melinda, of the lost teenage girls who were Manson’s victims. This is a book about the strength and fragility of the human spirit. And while a book like FAMILY is certainly not for the faint of heart, those who can handle a tough story are sure to be entranced by it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wow, this book was...wow! It definitely pulled me right back to the early 70’s. Mel describes herself as broken and she has been through so very much. It was at times disturbing to see the affect Henry had over his “family”. Further and further down the rabbit hole they all seemed to fall. How far will they all fall for the love and acceptance they crave so deeply? The verse it was written in was interesting and while it did switch between past and present, it seemed easy enough to follow. THis is one of the books on the Contemps Challenge. There are depictions of sex and drug use in this book, so be aware of that. I would recommend this book especially as a look back into history. Even though fictional, it's very realistic of that time period. This book was a taut emotional ride through a very haunting time and experience in America. I’m giving it four kisses!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Family is in the point of view of Mel, a girl who defines herself as broken. Mel meets Henry, who she falls head over heels in love with. Henry brings her to live with his “family” on a ranch that used to be a movie set. Readers who enjoy the poetic style of Ellen Hopkins will enjoy Family, which is also written in verse. The book is loosely based on the Charles Manson murders and explores the cult dynamic.Honestly, this book creeped me out. The only word in the book that are capitalized are Henry and pronouns that are referring to him. It was chilling how the characters fall over this person because they’re so broken that they don’t know what else to do.Family is definitely a book I’m recommending you read. Ostow’s way with words and manipulating the story weave the book into a chilling tale that will leave you thinking long after you’ve finished the last page.
Book preview
Family - Micol Ostow
For Louise Hawes, my patron saint.
EGMONT
We bring stories to life
First published by Egmont USA, 2011
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © Micol Ostow, 2011
All rights reserved
Author’s Note: While I drew the inspiration for this novel from the Charles Manson family and the events of the summer of 1969, it is a work of fiction and not meant to represent any specific persons or time in history.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
www.egmontusa.com
www.micolostow.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ostow, Micol.
Family/Micol Ostow.
p. cm.
Summary: In the 1960s, seventeen-year-old Melinda leaves an abusive home for San Francisco, meets the charismatic Henry, and follows him to his desert commune where sex and drugs are free, but soon his family
becomes violent against rich and powerful people and she is compelled to join in.
ISBN 978-1-60684-155-6 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-60684-197-6 (e-book)
[1. Cults—Fiction. 2. Communal living—Fiction. 3. Hippies—Fiction. 4. Abused women—Fiction. 5. Violence—Fiction. 6. Runaways—Fiction. 7. California—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.O8475Fam 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010043620
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
At my will, I walk your streets and am right out there among you.
—CHARLES MANSON
Contents
part I
always
after
undertow
after
Henry
Henry’s rules
escape
gentle
smoke
first time
after
blood
the ranch
arrival
sisters
fantasy
leila
dolls
campfire
music
hooking
junior
free love
ice
after
trash
legend
singer
after
part II
never
after
concert
love and terror
windows
chosen
hideaway
choir
chaos
in the now
mothers
uncle
home
teeth
after
neophyte
chemistry
angel
rescue
full
welcome
gone
immaculate
ties
la-la land
horizon
open
gathered
patient
ego
whispers
helter-skelter
arise
clean
worry
blood
lost
serious
frayed
after
spark
part III
now
before
now
part IV
end
acknowledgments
part I
always
i have always been broken.
this is something i’ve known forever, for at least as long as i can remember.
it doesn’t bother me anymore, this knowing, this fact that can’t be danced around.
the people who tell you that you can be put back together are wrong; they have their own ideas, their own agenda. i know this now. now, i know.
i didn’t, then.
then, i would have died for someone to tell me that they saw in me a glimmer of hope, of wholeness, this idea that there was something about me worth saving, savoring, worth staying with. worth putting back together.
i would have. died.
and maybe it would have been better if i had.
maybe. probably.
this is something else that now, i know.
after
my hands are streaked with blood that is not my own.
my hands are streaked with blood, and there is screaming.
somewhere in the house, there is a high-pitched, constant screaming that has, by now, dissolved into the sort of ambient white noise that a person could tune out, easily enough, if she were so inclined. canned horror, like you might find on a sound-effects recording, or at a theme-park haunted house. so many voices. so much panic.
i am so inclined; i tune the shrill vibrato out, send it to a separate frequency, set it aside for the immediate future, as i tend to the issue of my stained, shaking hands.
how did they get this way?
i know the answer. i don’t want to know the answer, but these are things i can’t undo, can’t un-know. things that are both my fault, my responsibility, as well as being beyond my control.
my hands shake, the blood pooling into the crevices of my gnawed-down cuticles.
stay here, mel,
shelly whispered, crouching in the door frame, her knife’s blade glistening by a sliver of caught moonlight. listen for sounds.
my hands shake. and even now, amidst the chaos, i am struck by how i have my mother’s hands, though hers have never looked like this, would never look like this.
how strange to think that i should have my mother’s hands. since i no longer have my mother, a mother, any mother.
i can’t help but think that things could have been so different.
undertow
when i was twelve years old, i drowned.
luckily, it didn’t take.
it was a family outing to the beach, the weather cooperative, if uncle
jack’s temper
(not my father, never my father, i have no father),
less so.
i loved the beach. i still do.
i drowned, almost—
died, almost. really—
in a different, real way than how i’d drowned
(how i’d been drowned)
before.
but still, i loved the beach:
the ocean, the horizon.
i still do.
the water was cold, bracing, but once i’d eased in past my shoulders, i hardly noticed.
instead, i focused on other sensations: the sting of salt burrowing into the thin membrane of skin on my lower leg, a slithery strand of seaweed brushing against me. the movement of the ocean current against my forearms as i paddled to tread water.
i felt strong, sturdy.
solid.
lightweight, too, which was slightly unexpected. it had been so long since i’d been swimming; so long since i’d felt lightweight.
i bobbed along, tethered by the pedaling of my legs. i could still make out the shoreline, the figures projected there in silhouette, and i fixated, briefly, on a couple. they were young, but older than i was. they looked like they had stepped off the cover of a romance novel. he was chiseled, steely, all-american. she was soft, lush, sun-streaked. he lifted her, tossed her over his shoulder and pulled her into the surf as she pounded her dainty fists against his back in mockprotest.
i could hear her shrieks of laughter. i couldn’t nothear them.
i tilted back, recalled the game my mother and i once played together: looking for shapes in the clouds above.
there had been a time, now nearly forgotten, that my mother did play games, you see. eons earlier, ages long past. back before uncle jack came into our lives. she had managed to pass something along, after all. something other than the curve of her smooth, unlined hands. something that i struggled to recapture in that instant, alone.
it took a moment for my eyes to adjust against the burn of the sunshine behind the haze, but then i saw it: a face. bushy eyebrows, lashes, pupils, a speck of a nose, something you might see on a cartoon character. an upturned grin.
mother loved the unpredictability of cloud formations, the way that you could project onto them almost anything you wanted to see. it went against her need for either/or, her need to always know, one way or the other.
but that never bothered me. i liked to have a game with her, liked her reassurance that the images that flashed before me were in some unexplainable way, logical. that someone else could maybe see them, too.
except that she and i, we never saw the same images in the sky.
a flamingo,
she told me once, when i was much younger, jabbing a manicured finger upward. the runaway bunny. a butterfly.
the streaks she pointed at expanded and collapsed under the imaginary weight of her fingertips, shifting. a…,
she floundered.
i countered, my own hands stubby and unkempt, even then. she filed my fingernails for me; it was my own fault that i couldn’t stop biting them. a vile habit, one i couldn’t break.
an evil wizard. the giant from ‘jack and the beanstalk.’ a sea witch.
i saw it, too, in the same clump of white that she’d been eyeing; her bunny’s tufted ears were my giant’s crooked fingers, beckoning.
it was a beautiful day, the kind that makes you feel that surely someone must have made a mistake, that there couldn’t possibly be anything as perfect and whole as the earth, and yet.
yet.
even then, i saw it—a giant, with crooked, beckoning fingers. and i knew that even if he wasn’t real, the version of our world being peddled on a sunny day like today was fleeting. that there couldn’t possibly be anything as perfect and whole as all of that.
that there was something about a girl who insisted on seeing the ogre over the bunny. who chose that for herself.
i knew, even then.
even then, i was being pulled.
under.
back at the beach, motherless, however temporarily, a breeze tickled the tips of my shoulders, causing my skin to break out in gooseflesh. i shivered, and the tableau above reconfigured itself. eyebrows tilted in, pupils shrank down, mouth stretched to a thin line.
i shivered again. the shift was minuscule. a blink, a hiccup, imperceptible.
but swift. and unmistakable. the way that my mother could be.
back when i had a mother.
i bobbed along in the water, tilted myself. redirected my gaze from the shore to the horizon. it was endless. which made me want to follow it.
infinity has always felt impossible to me. there is nothing, after all, that doesn’t end.
i had thought about it before, of course. about infinity. about shoulder blades and thighs, sturdy bodies and things that can and can’t be shared. about mothers who don’t mind if you go into the ocean by yourself, as long as you don’t go too deep.
about swift shifts, imperceptible but unmistakable.
i was shifting, drifting. i told myself that i was maybe being carried, that i wasn’t actually making a choice.
but the truth was, that was a choice. that i wanted to drift, to be gone. to be weightless. it was. a choice.
so, there were pills.
colorful fistfuls, cascading through splayed fingertips.
but. it takes a lot of pills—a waterfall of pills—to become weightless, and halfway through, i changed my mind. just in case things didn’t, actually, go on forever.
or just in case they did.
i told my mother. we pumped my stomach. didn’t tell uncle jack, since he and his constant anger were off at work.
mother didn’t bring it up again after that.
it seems to me that the type of people who see bunnies in the clouds are the ones who aren’t going to nod in agreement when all you’re seeing is a fairytale ogre who is looking to steal you away, to cause you harm.
which goes a long way toward explaining why mother and i so rarely found any common ground. how we—almost unwittingly, inadvertently—rubbed our tenuous connective tissue raw.
back when i had a mother, i mean.
there was a sharp whistle, and then hands. large, steady hands that slipped around my torso, clasping under my shoulders, firm, insistent. i inhaled sharply, looked up.
i’ve got you.
another boy, also chiseled, steely, all-american. i flushed despite the chill of the water. why?
you’re a mile out.
he nodded his head, gestured toward the shoreline. or, where i imagined the shoreline would be. i was shocked to find that i couldn’t actually see it. i was a mile out.