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Deconstructing Squeaky >> A sympathetic portrayal of Manson girl Lynette Fromme by JULIET WATERS
In retrospect, it may seem that Fromme was more Hartman's type than he or author Jess Bravin realized when the first edition of Squeaky was published in 1997. Although, if Phil and Squeaky had been soulmates, he'd probably still be alive today, since she's never actually killed anyone. Nevertheless, the impression most people have of her is pretty much the polar opposite of sweet and shy. "Monomaniacal kook," is how Bravin sums up popular opinion of the woman known as the alpha female of the Manson Family and a failed presidential assassin. However, it's important to note that Hartman certainly wasn't alone in liking her. Described as "personality plus" by classmates in her high school yearbook, Fromme falls far from the stereotype of most cult zealots and assassins. "Assassins are routinely depicted as alienated loners who have lost touch with reality," argues Bravin, "but at another level, they seem to be people who are highly sensitive to the social trends of their era, people who seem to be so full of the moment that they explode." At Redondo High, Squeaky was girlfriend to the most popular guy in school, Bill Siddons, who later went on to become manager of the Doors. Her marks were good and she was the favourite protégée of her English teacher, who wrote screenplays with Robert Altman and directed other Redondo alumni like the Smothers Brothers. Even after the Manson family became notorious, Fromme managed to charm policemen, prosecuting attorneys and judges. While she was on trial for trying to assassinate Gerald Ford, the president of her tenants' association spoke in her defence at a bail hearing and informed the court that nine out of 10 tenants had voted in favour of letting Squeaky keep her apartment. On the surface, Fromme had an interesting and innocent Southern Californian childhood. As the star of a children's dance troupe, she appeared on the Lawrence Welk, Dinah Shore and Art Linkletter shows, had met Walt Disney and had performed twice at the White House before she was 13. But Fromme was the victim of extreme psychological and emotional abuse by her father. For reasons unknown, William Fromme decided to stop talking to his daughter when she was a teenager, ordering her to eat in a different room from the rest of the family and shunning her for a period of about three years. William Fromme laid the groundwork for turning an oversensitive and flaky but talented teenager into a disturbed icon for counterculture cranks. Charles Manson seems to have arrived at just the right time to plant the seeds. If Bravin accomplishes one thing with this book, it's to illustrate the obvious attraction of Manson for someone as fragile as Squeaky. But he falls short on coming up with theories for Fromme's undying loyalty to Manson. Bravin stays away from theorizing or judging Squeaky, in order to keep the reader as close as possible to her narrow and naïve point of view. But it's a perspective that begins to wear after the first hundred pages. And while Bravin does create a remarkably sympathetic portrayal of Squeaky, it helps that he deals with the TateLaBianca murders in two paragraphs. What's needed for this book to remain interesting is a stronger point of view--even if it's wrong--or more input from Fromme herself. While she refused to give interviews for the first edition, some of her comments on the book are published in an afterword to this new edition. They lead one to believe that Fromme is more than the emotional 12 year old she comes across as in this book, and that there is still something to be written on the strange case of Lynette Alice Fromme. Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme by Jess Bravin, St. Martin's Press, pb, 450 pp, $22.99
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"Very sweet--and very shy." That's how Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was remembered by a pal from junior high, the late Phil Hartman. "Though they were friendly," we're told in Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme, "Lyne was not the kind of girl he would ask out."