Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club

I'm not a motorcycle afficionado. However, I did go to university during the early 70's, and the Hell's Angels were very much part of the zeitgeist of the counterculture revolution. So I wanted to read Sonny Barger's account of how the Hell's Angels were founded and how they lived and died in those turbulent times because I wanted a peek into that secret world.I found this book absolutely fascinating. Barger tells about some of the original leaders of the Oakland chapter of the Angels, which, with San Bernadino (Berdoo) were the wildest of the wild bunch and at the heart and core of the organization. Many of Barger's closest Hell's Angels charter members died of drugs or murder and this is the most disturbing thing about the entire book. Murder, vicious beatings, drugs are all taken as status-quo. Barger himself went to prison more than once, being a target for prosecution as the top dog of a renegade organization. His account of how he was one of the first to experience the RICO act was fascinating. He certainly was involved in drugs. What else, well, everyone in prison always says they are innocent, so what can you believe?Barger doesn't neglect the women in his life. Their story is interesting and he tells about his marriages with stark reality yet with some tenderness. The most amazing thing is how a guy like Barger had such an attraction to danger and bad behavior, yet survived when so many around him died so young. One interesting factor is his upbringing. Son of a drunken, abusive dad and a mother who ran off and abandoned him, he had an strong desire for order and discipline coupled with a complete rebellion against any outside authority. This contradictory nature is apparently not an unusual combination. Barger ran off to the military, lied about his age to join and would have completed his term but for the discovery of his actual age. True to character, Barger loved the military (order) and didn't always react badly to the discipline (belonging to a gang or club apparently allowed him to accept at least some of the authority.) He took his strong drive for order and organization and turned that into the founding and management of the Angels. Had Barger a less dysfunctional upbringing, he might have been a corporate chieftain, not the leader of a band of counter-culture wild men. Who can tell? His taste for order and discipline showed in the way he organized and policed the club. He spent a lot of time on club management--this was not a life of complete anarchy. A fascinating situation.Even though I don't share Barger's value system, I certainly got a lot of insight into the Angels, and learned a fascinating piece of counterculture history.

The motorcycle club subculture has been an important theme in Hollywood (from The Wild One to Easy Rider) and in recordings (the song, Leader of the Pack). Everyone who sees the Hell's Angels has an opinion about what is going on, yet few have had a first hand relationship with a member. This book gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like for Oakland's leader of the pack, one of the first branches of the Hell's Angels.I grew up in San Bernardino (Berdoo in the book) which was an even earlier branch of the Hell's Angels than was Oakland. Some people I went to high school with joined the Hell's Angels. We all heard many stories about the group, and what went on. We treated these people with extreme caution and gave them a wide berth.The book brings out an ethos of freedom (the open road) combined with a masculine emphasis on being respected and being loyal to friends. At the same time, there is an underlying sense of the frontier marshall, wanting to clean up those who were challenging law and order. Behind that there is a disregard for the rules most of us follow, whether in speed, drugs, theft, or violence. This book is filled with deaths, injuries, and destruction. The Hell's Angels live in a dangerous world, and that doesn't bother them. What would bother them is not following their code of ethics. Having read about all of the things the Hell's Angels are supposed to have done in the last 50 or so years, it is interesting to hear it from the other side. Although you probably won't want to emulate Sonny Barger in too many ways, you'll certainly never forget him. If you love motorcycles (as many of us do), you'll be moved by his loving descriptions of various bikes. He was truly the wild one at the head of the bike pack.

As a psychologist and the father of a Hell's Angel, I was extremely gratified to read a real story about the Angels, written by the man who knows the most about them. Action, excitement, no bull****, and humor. Sonny tells it like it is. I recommend this book for anyone interested in motorcycles, brotherhood, and the truth about one of America's most important subcultures.