No One Here Gets Out Alive

Rating:
Summary: Short and Concise
Review: I've read a few Morrsion biographies, and this might be my favorite. The real appeal of this one is the length- a little over 300 pages in a handy paperback, as opposed to a bible like "Break On Through". If you have only a passing interest in Morrison and the Doors, this is probably the best biography. However, if you want a more deatailed portrayal of Jim, with more background information, and can stick with a longer book, I would suggest "Break On Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison". But even for seasoned Doors/Morrison fans, this is a good read.

Rating:
Summary: "ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ME?"
Review: I have to tell a story. I have a friend who won an Oscar for editing "Apollo 13". A few years ago, he drove his girlfriend to the bank in downtown Beverly Hills. Parking being what it is in the B.H., my man waited in the car while his girlfriend went in to do her banking. My pal, being a big-time Doors fan, popped in a tape, which played "The End", loud. It was hot and the window was down. Jim Morrison was wailing about how he "took a face from the ancient gallery and...walked on down the haaaaalll, yeah..."

Suddenly, Danny Sugarman, one-time Doors assistant, now married to Iran-Contra ingenue Fawn Hall, and the author of "No One Here Gets Out Alive", appeared at the window, surprising my friend.

"Are you looking for me?" he asked my friend.

It seems that Sugarman had an appointment in the area but could not find the address. Hearing The Doors playing loudly, he figured it was a siren song, like the wailing of the mermaids drawing Ulysses to the rocks, meant to say to him, "Hey man, I'm over here."

Somehow this is a story that resonates in the memory of Jim Morrison, who is as much legend and hype as a great rock star and poet. Morrison may have been the sharpest rock singer ever. The son of a Navy admiral who was in charge at the Gulf of Tonkin, while growing up he would invite friends into his room and close his eyes.

"Pick a book," he would tell friends, gesturing to his shelves, which were stocked with thousands of titles.

"Go to any page," he would say. "Read any line."

His friends would do that, and Jim could always tell them the name of the book and the author. That is a genius.

Sugarman's work captures the genius and charisma of Morrison. It is, along with his other book, "Wonderland Avenue", just possibly the best rock book ever.

Steven Travers
Author of "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman"
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Biography of Jim Morrison
Review: I have not read any other bios on Jim although I know there are quite a few books on his life however, I believe this is probably the most accurate so far. I read this book a long time ago and I remember being mesmerized from the first to page to the last. Danny Sugerman (who worked for The Doors for a long time) was not an only an associate but a close friend to Jim and he was able to achieve what very few people ever could: Get to know who the real Jim Morrison was. This book not only talks about his life and career but also talks in great length of the human side of Morrison as well. NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE, is an almost day to day account of Jim's life from his birth to his untimely and very mysterious death in Paris in 1971. It also talks in great detail about his poetry and the things that interest him the most like films, psychology, philosophy, sex and death. This is a great read and is never dull or boring. The only downside to this book is that the print is too small. It would a good idea if they can publish the same book with a larger print. The book also includes several pages of photographs of Jim and the band and with the woman that he called his "muse" Pamela Courson who was Jim's girlfriend from the time that that the band was being formed right up till the end of his life. Again, I would like to say that this is a great book for anyone who has ever been interested in knowing about Jim Morrison, who he was and what he became and what most of all wanted to become. I highly recommended is a very good book about a man an artist who died way too young who lived life so on the edge that found life itself impossible to bare.

Rating:
Summary: Whoa.
Review: I was impressed by this book for many reasons, it not only gives interesting details on how Jim Morrison became the..strange man that he was, but it also details in perfect chronology the hits and failures of the Doors in the mediums of film, books and records. It also offers many theories on Morrison's death, (although, for a better look, I'd recommend Rolling Stone's new article, revolations on the last days of jim morrison).
This book is easy to read for the most part, but sometimes it isn't extremely clear. For example, I wish it would have gone over his death for more than a few pages, and in some parts of the book it just feels like you're reading a bunch of old magazine articles about the doors.
It is overall a good read even if you aren't a doors fan, even if you think Morrison was a drunkard posing as a poet. Very good.

Rating:
Summary: No Hero but a Little Worship
Review: I first read this book in 1984 and I have re-read it several times in the intervening years. The story of how it came to be published is quite well-known. Jerry Hopkins is a journalist who interviewed Jim Morrison on several occasions during his lifetime. After Morrison dies, Hopkins began work on a biography. Following several unsuccessful years of attempting to get the completed biography published, Jerry Hopkins meets Danny Sugerman. Sugerman was a teenage admirer of The Doors and eventually wrangled an office job out of a sympathetic Morrison (a more complete story of Sugerman is told in his autobiography "Wonderland Avenue"). In any event, Sugerman adds his perspective and personal anecdotes to the story and, helped by the resurgence of interest in the music of The Doors, the book is eventually published in 1981.

I think the argument that the book is hero-worship is only partially true. Certainly Danny Sugerman had feelings for Morrison that were akin to idolatry and that comes across in the book. On the other hand, Jerry Hopkins was a working journalist and his professionalism and research is also evident. While reading the book it is in most instances possible to determine what was written by Hopkins and what was penned by Sugerman. I suppose this incongruity might be irksome to some but the narrative does flow and does not detract from the overall story of the life of Jim Morrison.

In the almost 20 years that have elapsed since I first read No One Here Gets Out Alive I have read everything I could get my hands on that in any way concerned Jim Morrison and The Doors. I have yet to read a more definitive account or one which largely contradicted anything contained in this book. That's not to say that there aren't other good books or interesting perspectives, only that this is the wellspring of Jim Morrison-related literature.

This book is of obvious interest to any one who likes the music of The Doors and/or finds Jim Morrison fascinating. I fall into both categories. However, Jim Morrison was not a particularly admirable fellow. He did experiment with drugs, he often treated his friends badly, he was fairly promiscuous (even carelessly impregnating a girlfriend and then shirking responsibility), etc. Of course Morrison did have many good characteristics as well. His love of reading, sense of humor and displays of genuine affection are intermingled with his faults. I believe this book does a generally good job of portraying a reasonable facsimile of Jim Morrison.

For me this book sparked an even greater interest in Morrison and The Doors which continues to this day. At the same time, this book also provides a good antidote to hero-worship. As a cautionary note to those who choose to view Jim Morrison through rose-colored glasses, I suggest that you don't read the Hopkins/Sugerman biography. Those that do choose to read the biography carefully will have, as James Joyce wrote, "discovered to their vast discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay, after placing him upon a pedestal."