Rating: 
Summary: Patricia Butler did her homework!!!
Review: This book was so interesting, I finished it in a few days. Couldn't put it down. This is not a "fairytale". This is a book Ms. Butler obviously did a lot of research on. There's an extensive SOURCES section at the end of the book. For each chapter, everyone she interviewed, every source, is listed. Ray and Dorothy Manzarek, Robby Krieger, Julia Densmore-Negron, Bill (former Doors manager) Siddons, and many otheres in the Doors camp, too many to list here, are interviewed. People who knew Jim and Pam as far back as elementary school are interviewed. It makes for a very interesting read. Since so many people who knew Jim and Pam are constantly quoted, this book never feels like a delusional fairytale. It's not the biased POV of a single individual with an axe to grind, it's the words of MANY people who knew Jim and Pam for years. The book didn't tell me anything about Pam's favorite bands, but I did get a sense of what drew her and Morrison together. They both came off as sort of "outcasts" in highschool, rebels who didn't fit in and refused to conform. There's consistency here. So many people described Pam as "sweet", but also someone gutsy enough to stand up to Jim if she had to. The book also gets into Jim's pattern with other women. A pattern of using other women as sounding boards to vent his frustrations with Pam, stringing these women along with poetry, letters, books, lots of attention, then returning to Pam. One of these women, named Anne, is interviewed. Her story reminded me a lot of Patricia Kennealy's, only without all the self-importance and bitterness. Anne wisely learned not to take Jim too seriously. There are some very interesting interviews in here. I started reading "Strange Days" by Patricia Kennealy before this book. So imagine my surprise when Babe Hill is interviewed in "Angels Dance" and talks about a woman who came to FL during Jim's trial, claiming she was pregnant and married to Jim. Babe doesn't mention any names, but this interested me very much! Anyway, Babe goes on to ask Jim if it's true he's married, Jim tells him possibly, he doesn't know, he was drunk, and there were no feelings for this woman. This isn't something Butler "made up", this is what Babe Hill told her when he was interviewed. Leon Barnard, the Doors European publicist, recalls the last conversation he had with Jim. "He said that Pamela had gotten under his skin, that she was his cosmic mate. He considered her to be his cosmic counterpart. He felt that he couldn't live without her, that she was the one he always returned to and she was the compliment to his existence". This isn't a made-up fairytale. It's Leon Barnard, someone who knew Jim personally, being interviewed by Patricia Butler. People who have no agenda and nothing to gain. People who witnessed Pam grieving during the aftermath of Morrison's death are interviewed. If you put it all together, along with John Densmore's book "Riders on the Storm", and Ray Manzarek's book "Light My Fire", you get a pretty good picture. While Pamela is hardly the ruthless black widow certain ex-flings of Morrison would have us believe, it seems to be common knowledge in the Doors camp Jim got into Pam's stash. I've read Marianne Faithfull's book, and she talks about her boyfriend (Count Jean, also a flame of Pam's) being summoned to Jim and Pam's apartment. This seems to corroborate what John Densmore learned in his book. Marianne says Jean was a dealer who provided the smack Jim took. I won't buy Butler's "death by asthma" theory! Everything else Butler digs up is much more believable. Such as the revelations in the un-published manuscripts of Max Fink, Jim's lawyer. As for Pam being a "junkie", Butler dug up the actual autopsy report on Pam. Seems Pam was a serious dabbler, not a serious junkie, when she died. I think the coroner is less biased than certain bitter, ex-flings of Morrison who resented Pamela. Butler's overall research is quite impressive. I recommend this book to any Doors fan, right along with books by Manzarek and Densmore!
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