A Wayward Angel: The Full-Story of the Hell's Angels by the Former Vice-President of the Oakland Chapter

by George Wethern, Vincent Colnett

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Editorial Reviews
Product Description

The Hell's Angels. The name conjures up images of toughs on Harleys terrorizing the law-abiding; of wild brawls and wild sex; of drugs and cruelty, beatings, and even murder. Their lifestyle, we think, is horrifying, but it's also perversely fascinating, for there's an alluring freedom in such nihilism. Still, nobody knows what it's like to be an Angel except an Angel-an Angel like George Wethern, for many years the vice president of the Oakland Chapter.

Until he found himself in reluctant service to the courts, Wethern was the quintessential Angel, tough as they come, one of the most important drug dealers on the West Coast-a man who loved bikes, fights, women, and drugs; a man who knew the deepest secrets of Angel life. Arrested, strung out on drugs, in despair, he testified in several major trials against Angel members-and then went into hiding.

In A Wayward Angel, we witness killings, drug deals worth millions, "picnics" that are nothing short of orgies, the inner codes and inner workings of the club and its bizarre initiation rites. It is a vivid portrait of the chaos of postwar California, the awful early collision of the drug scene and the alienation of modern life, a story as American as can be. This is a powerful book, and not for the squeamish; but it's fascinating and important, terrifying because it's real.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

True History, 2008-04-22
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.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Could have been great...., 2008-03-20
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.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting Read, 2008-01-30
I enjoyed reading this book, but at times it dragged a bit. This is very informative and riddled by many key historical events that made up the Hell's Angels which was great. It was not as good as Under and Alone, but I did enjoy this book very much and recommend it for readers interested in learning about the start of the Hell's Angels and their activities by a major insider.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Connie from Hellertown, 2007-11-29
I thought this book was great. My husband and myself read this book in days. We are motorcycle enthusists and are intriqued with outlaw groups. Would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in motorcycling.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

If you've read other books on OMG's..., 2007-11-23
It is not a bad book, but if you have read into OMG's in any depth the peripheral information is old news. It is kind of interesting to see things from the author's perspective. If you are a first time reader on OMG's, then I would say buy it and read. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

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