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Motorcycle Book Store > Motorcycle books beginning with W
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A Wayward Angel: The Full-Story of the Hell's Angels by the Former Vice-President of the Oakland Chapter |
Author: George Wethern
Published: 2004-08-01 |
List price: $14.95
Our price: $4.79
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As of: November 21st, 2008 10:42:11 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Page Turner
Once I started this book, I could not put it down. When I was at work I couldn't wait for break to get to the next chapter, once I got home from work I couldn't wait to finish dinner and get a chance to see what was going to happen next. This book is just as good as Under and Alone. The only difference is this book was from the view of an ex-Hells Angels member. He tells alot of detail and explains his life in such detail you feel like you are living it.
If you like this book and haven't read Under and Alone, be sure you do, Under and Alone is from the view of an undercover ATF Agent and talks more about the Mongols Motorcycle Gang but is also a page turner!
Both books are worth it if you want to know the lives of people involved in Biker Life! You will not be dissapointed!!
 VIEWPOINT OF A SNITCH
What is there to say, it is the viewpoint of a snitch, traitor and informant. I am sure there was a ounce of truth in the book but for the most part it was a pack of lies. He testified and said what the government wanted him to say and he tells you all the stereotypical B.S. that people "think" bikers are about. Hell's Angels is a club that happens to have some members that were criminals but not all the Hell's Angels were or are criminals. Unlike the mob where membership requires you to be a criminal Hell's Angels does not require you to be a criminal to join their club, so therefore Hell's Angels is not a criminal enterprise or organization. Hey George is a liar and a snitch and now he wants to profit by writing a book of lies. Save your money and buy a book by Sonny Barger one of the founders of Hell's Angels. Mr. Barger writes the truth and admits his good deeds as well as his bad deeds. He did his time in prison and never ratted anyone out, he keeps it real in his books. The Hell's Angels are regular people for the most part except they like to party a lot and they will fight/rumble at the drop of a hat. Most of them have jobs, pay taxes and do their best to take care of themselves and their families just like any good citizen.
 Published in the late 70's, but an interesting read.
Although this was first published almost 3 decades ago, it's still an interesting read. It holds some of the same info/events detailed in Sonny Barger's books, and many extras from the author's point of view.
Lots of interesting tidbits about the drug scene in California in the 60's.
True History
Back in the late seventies or early eighties (can't remember which) when this originally came out, we all went down to Delaurer's bookstore on Broadway back home in Oakland.A number of ladies whose significant others were in the local chapters were there buying up every copy they could so the public wouldn't have any insight into the club and it's workings.Reason I mention it is that books on famous clubs are all over the place, Ralph has gone to Cave Creek and is now a best selling author etc..Bill Queen did two years with the Mongols and now gets his own movie..If you're biker history buff and want the real story on the Oakland chapter, then this in combination with "Hells Angel" would be the best choice. Leave the rest for the RUBS and Johnny come lately wannabes and their softtails.
 Could have been great....
I read this book with fairly high expectations, since I had already read Sonny Barger's account of the Hells Angels. Certainly I expected a very different perspective from Barger's, and that is exactly what you will find. Wethern gives an excellent account of his days with the Hells Angels, but this book is seriously flawed. How? The "co-writer" Vincent Colnett intrudes on the tale. He has taken Wethern's story and written it in the first person, as if George Wethern were telling the tale. That should have worked fine, but the problem is that Colnett tries so hard to show how clever and educated he is that he does Wethern's story a disservice through the intrusive nature of his language.
Only occasionally does the monologue sound like the reader would imagine Wethern to sound. Throughout most of the book, the ideas are expressed in a way that a university English major would write. It grates on the nerves to read the first hundred pages of this book. Just when an anecdote gets interesting, Colnett's overly ornamental vocabulary intrudes. If a real Hells Angel ever spoke the way Colnett writes Wethern's monologue, he'd probably get cracked with a pool cue.
I have to wonder what Wethern's publisher was thinking. Why wasn't this book re-edited before publication to make it ring more 'true' language-wise? After all the things Wethern and his family have gone through, they deserve more than this; at the very least the publisher could have assigned a writer who wouldn't have stepped all over the material with his hackneyed prose.
Do read this book, but read Sonny Barger's book before or in conjunction with it. Through both of them, you'll be able to piece together something more complete. And Barger's book sounds the way you would imagine that a Hells Angel speaks.
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