Jan. 13 – Brace yourself for what could become the most controversial book of 1987: “Manson in His Own Words,” which Grove Press is to publish this month.

The book presents for the first time Charles Mansons’s side of his sordid life and his conviction in the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders of nine people in 1969.

Manson was the accused leader of an outlaw communal “family” in southern California that lived on drugs and crime at the fringe of the late 1960s counterculture before exploding into violence.

The publisher purports that the book shatters the myth of “Manson as a demonic Pied Piper with mystical powers.”

Manson, originally sentenced to death, is serving a life term in San Quentin Prison. He was interviewed over a six-year period starting in 1979 by Nuel Emmons, a freelance writer who first encountered Manson briefly while both were in prison in the mid 1950s. Emmons converted those interviews into Manson’s first-person account.

Ira Silverberg, publicity director at Grove Press, said that with a 35,000-copy first printing, “Manson in His Own Words” could become one of the biggest books ever published by Grove. Small by blockbuster standards, it is one of the largest hard-cover press runs in Grove’s history.

Advance bookstore interest has been very high, Silverberg said.

“It will be phenomenal, to say the least,” he said of the expected reaction.

He said response from early readers of the book (bound galleys have been sent to reviewers in recent weeks) have included surprise over Manson’s confessions, which apparently include previously unrevealed details of the crimes. Others noted the societal value of explaining the pathology of a criminal, he said.

In a recent note to reviewers, Silverberg said that Manson would derive no financial benefit from the book’s publication.

By STEVE PAUL