Sway: A Novel

Zachary Lazar
Little, Brown and Company (2008)
ISBN 9780316113090
Reviewed by April Sullivan for Reader Views (12/07)


“Sway” is a novel about the counter culture of the late 1960s.  Lazar tells a fictional story using well-known characters from the era.  The Rolling Stones, Charles Manson, and filmmaker Kenneth Anger all come together through the character of Bobby Beausoleil.  Bobby is a young man from California who gets caught up with Manson and stars in a film by Anger that also features Mick, Keith, and Brian from The Rolling Stones.

“Sway,” a simple word, is used several times throughout the book.  It describes the movement of the music as well as the influences the characters have on each other.  Lazar writes about the magical moments during the beginning stages of a band.  But not just any band, one that the reader knows will become a rock super group.  The influences each member brought to the group shaped their style and their successes as well as their downfalls. 

Examples of the sway the book describes are:  the influence Charles Manson had on the young men and women who followed him, the influence of having a camera aimed at you and how that makes you an instant star in your own mind, before anyone has even seen the film, and the deep influence of good and evil that a person can have on another person in a time and place of radical change.

“Sway” embodies the spirit of the 1960s.  The rock-star lifestyle, the drugs and music, the demonic murders committed by the Manson Family, the violence at The Rolling Stones concerts, and the images in Anger’s films swirl together into an experience that is a spin of reality and surrealism.

Lazar has done a nice job of taking snapshots of history and embellishing them to create a story that goes beyond all of the parts.  Being born in the 1970s, I do not have first-hand knowledge of the time in history portrayed in this novel, so I enjoyed it as a fictional story.  A reader who has lived through the events mentioned may have a completely different take on this novel titled “Sway.”  Either way, I think it is an enjoyable read for everyone.  It will catch you up in its sway.

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