Exile on Front Street
My Life as a Hells Angel
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4.1 • 11 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A memoir of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club from one of its highest-profile leaders.
After forty years in the Hells Angels, George Christie was ready to retire. As the president of the notorious Ventura chapter for the club, he had been the yin to Sonny Barger's yang. Barger was the reckless figurehead and de facto world leader of the Angels. Christie was the negotiator, the spokesman, the thinker, the guy who smoothed things out. He was the one who carried the Olympic torch and counted movie stars, artists, the Grateful Dead and the police chief captains among his friends. But leaving isn't easy, and within two weeks of retirement he was told he was 'out bad', blackballed by his fellow Angels, prohibited from wearing the club patch, even told he should remove his Death Head tattoo.
Now, Christie's set out to tell his story. Exile on Front Street is the tale of how a midde-class electrician gave up a comfortable job with the Department of Defense and swore allegiance to the Hells Angels. In this action-packed, hard-hitting memoir, he recounts his life as an outlaw biker with the world's most infamous motorcycle club.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Christie, a onetime member of the Hells Angels, points out in this lucid member that the greatest threat to an outlaw isn't cops it's his outlaw brothers. Raised in a close-knit Greek-American family in Ventura, Calif., Christie encountered a denim-clad, long-haired biker in 1955 and saw his future. After a stint in the Marines and an unfortunate marriage, Christie started riding with the Angels while raising a family and working for the Department of Defense. Troubled by the club feuds and senseless killings, Christie tried to mediate the strife and rose to the presidency of the Ventura chapter, cementing his role of peacemaker by running with the torch at the 1984 Olympics. Yet no amount of PR could overcome the sectarian squabbling and endless police harassment. Christie is a convincing narrator, though it's impossible to believe that he's the Boy Scout he makes himself out to be. Legal concerns may explain his circumspection, and his numerous enemies certainly have a very different take on their disagreements. Sonny Barger, the legendary president of the Oakland Angels, features as a Machiavellian villain, intent on destroying anyone who threatens his place in the spotlight. That said, Christie articulately defends his outlaw code, which he adhered to at great personal cost. Although he resigned from the Angels in 2010, his past, as he engagingly writes, continues to haunt him. As Christie wryly observes, "You don't just stop being an outlaw."
