Contemporary reviews of "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell" were mixed. In "The Austin Chronicle", Marc Savlov hailed the book as "a terrific rock & roll saga in the epic vein...Like Manson's gooney-harsh music and Danzig-on-goofdust lyrics, the book sucks you in and never lets you go until the final appendices are past." "Tucson Weekly" James DiGiovanna found the book "quite good" and praised its opening chapters for insightfully "illustrating the mesmerizing and disquieting effect such images can have on the young. This alone gives the book interest far beyond its status as a celebrity's story." Jason Morgan of "The Washington Post" said that the book's prose is "surprisingly polished and even beautiful on occasion," it sometimes succumbs to "lush writerly excess" reminiscent of William Faulkner's work. "SF Weekly" said that ""The Long Hard Road Out of Hell" isn't a bad read at all" but it left "essential ground...uncovered." He found the book's narrative reminiscent of both Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" (1915) and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" (1925). In "Entertainment Weekly", Rob Brunner never explained why Manson grew into the man that he did and featured numerous boring passages about debauchery. "People" said that the "tell-too-much autobio reveals that beneath the weird makeup, noisy music and parent-enraging act beats the heart of...a boring guy from Ohio."