From Keeping It In the Family, by Claire Watkins, in Granta's recent Fathers issue.
My father first came to Death Valley
because Charles Manson told him to. He always did what Charlie said;
that was what it meant to be in The Family.
It's a great little memoir/essay, no more than about 700 words long. Read it. Here's the picture that set it in motion...of Claire, her sister, and her dad, a Charlie Manson devotee, in Death Valley in the 1960's.
