Angels Dance & Angels Die The Tragic Romance of Pamela & Jim Morrison: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison

Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison

Butler, Patricia

Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books, 1998. ISBN: 9780028647296

Angels Dance and Angels Die is a tragic melodrama involving one of rocks greatest legends; sex, drugs, and rock n roll meet Romeo and Juliet. The book examines one of the most turbulent aspects of legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrisons life, his relationship with Pamela Coursin. A self-proclaimed creation of Jim Morrison, Courson was a complex and compelling woman who lived several roles in her relationship with the Doors lead singer: groupie, muse, and wife, to name a few. Angels Dance examines the lives of Courson and Morrison before their fateful meeting in 1965; it chronicles their lives together until Morrisons death in 1971; and it describes Coursons life without Morrison, including her fight to gain the rights to his estate until her death from a heroin overdose on April 25, 1974.

About the Author:
Patricia Butler is a freelance writer based in the Chicago area.

From Kirkus Reviews:
How one views this gossamer-thin account of the doomed Doors frontman and his equally troubled common-law wife rests largely on one's (forgive the expression) ``perception of the Doors.'' This book will be tonic to those eager for more dish on the man they regard as the Rimbaud-esque cynosure of the angst-filled '60s generation. Those baffled by Morrison's fame--particularly the respect he received as a poet--will find this book supports, quite unintentionally, their contentions as well. It's not that Butler didn't do her homework; among the people she interviewed and sources she consulted are the Elektra Records A&R tyro Jac Holzman and the surviving members of the Doors, school and police records, and even medical journals. The problem rests chiefly with Butler's subject. This story has in large part been told many times before, from many angles, and often to better effect. Readers, whether Doors fans or not, will have a tough time piecing events together chronologically, as this narrative only sketchily covers the background events that shaped and defined Jim and Pam's world. Additionally, Butler seems to cast a sentimental and too often uncritical eye on the ``tragic lovers' '' relationship, neglecting to acknowledge that the two were essentially beautiful booze- and drug-addled twentysomethings with money to burn, and that their fatal flaw was not so much being at odds with the material world as it was never having been forced to confront it without help from agents, roadies, groupies, or sycophants. The Doors' keyboardist and co- founder (with Jim), Ray Manzarek, claims that Pamela and Jim will ``go down in history as great lovers,'' and that their tale recalls Romeo and Juliet, Heloise and Abelard. Perhaps one could argue that a more fitting, albeit less flattering, comparison might be Sid (Vicious) and Nancy (Spungeon)