by Jerry Hopkins and Daniel Sugerman
Jim Morrison, lead singer for the Doors, one of the leading hard rock groups of the '60s (Light My Fire was their classic), died in 1971 at age 27. In this sympathetic, occasionally ingenuous biography, Rolling Stone contributing editor Hopkins and former Doors roadie Sugerman trace the slow descent into hell that was Morrison's life. Obviously bent on self-destruction, Morrison amused himself by dangling from hotel balconies and abused his body with every chemical substance he could lay his hands on. The official cause of his death was a heart attack, but there are friends who insist he isn't dead at all. One theory: Morrison faked his demise (the coffin was sealed) and went to Africa to write poetry. That dubious speculation aside, the pair has written an often absorbing chronicle of a particularly manic phase in American pop culture. (Warner Books, $7.95 paperback)
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