Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison [Paperback]

Linda Ashcroft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1999

Linda Ashcroft offers an intimate memoir of Jim Morrison at the height of his career. This vivid portrait is based on her diaries from the four-year period when she knew Morrison. "Wild Child," one of Morrison's most popular songs, was written for Ashcroft. Morrison's dreams and demons, and the meaning behind his lyrics and poems, are revealed through Ashcroft's evocative writing. Wild Child is a richly detailed and passionate account of what life was like with the legendary Doors singer. It is also the first book to illuminate the mystery of Morrison's death through the words of the woman who was with him when he died in Paris, Pamela Courson. Before flying to Paris, Morrison told the author: "It may have been in bits and pieces, but I gave you the best of me." In return, Linda Ashcroft gives us the best of Jim Morrison.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (December 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560252499
• ISBN-13: 978-1560252498
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,119,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You make the call, February 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison (Paperback)

This book is either a beautiful love story and insightful look at Jim Morrison, or a work of deceiving, manipulative genious. I have read almost every book on Jim Morrison and The Doors and this woman was never mentioned once. Great detail has been given to all of Jim's serious girlfriends in the other books, with no trace of a Linda Ashcroft. However,amazingly, the book is so convincing that I am absolutely torn about what to think. If the book is a fake, I would stand in respectful awe of this author's brilliance. Either way, the book is enjoyable and I recommend it.

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great book... for fiction..., March 21, 2001

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison (Paperback)

As a biography, I give it no stars. As a work of fiction, I give it four. That evens out to two.

This book chronicles the love affair of Jim Morrison and Linda Ashcroft, rock star and anonymous woman. The read is romantic and beautiful... too bad it's apparently fiction. Ashcroft offers a book that is, sadly, a pack of either lies or delusion.

Her book's very core conflicts with and flatly contradicts the dual relationships with Pamela Coursen and Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, one of whom extra-legally married to him - a proven testimony that would conflict with Ashcroft's claim that Jim was planning to marry her. She gives no specific dates or landmarks in Jim's life, making vague references to concerts and such events - no one still living (or un-brain-burned) had apparently seen the two together. Supposed thefts deprived her of the alleged material documenting her relationship with Jim.

Smells funny, no? Pamela Coursen had many, many witnesses that she was Jim's lover, testimonies from many people. Patricia Kennealy-Morrison has signed documentation alongside testimonies (though fewer than Pamela) that she had a relationship and extra-legal marriage with Jim Morrison. Ashcroft's utter lack of either documentation or witnesses adds to the funny smell, even if you disbelieve all that we know of either woman in Jim's life.

As a novel, this book reads well. Sweet and romantic, with an excellent writing style and a pleasant flow. But I found it highly distracting that the author wrote this as a biography, and that I knew that none of this was true. Also, some of the things that Jim allegedly said to her disturbed me, and made me wonder why she would put such things down about/by Jim if she supposedly loved him.

If you truly wish to know more about Jim Morrison and women who loved him, I advise you to read both "Strange Days" and "Angels Dance, Angels Die," one about his relationship to Patricia Kennealy-Morrison and one about his relationship to Pamela Coursen. I cannot recommend this as a biography.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Will the real truth please stand up?, March 15, 2000

By 

Mama J "digee101" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison (Paperback)

A beautifully told story of love, trust, sensuality and creativity between two kindred souls. I enjoyed Ms. Ashcroft's writing style. The book read with a languid pace that held and absorbed. It painted such an intimate portrait of Mr. Morrison, that at times it was painful to read. But, is it the truth? You will have to read and come to your own conclusions. Truth has many sides.