Janis, backstage.
Photo courtesy of Ana Pergunta. 

The Rock and Roll Book of the Dead
solves these mysteries and many more....

Janis was finishing the greatest album of her career, after countless affairs she was at last engaged to the man of her dreams, and she was kicking her heroin addiction. At least, this is the official story.

• Was her fatal overdose indeed just a tragic accident? Or did her fiancé, Seth Morgan, a psycho coke dealer, who had just jilted her, drive her to suicide?   

• Janis insisted she was “strong” and a “survivor.” Why did her will set aside thousands of dollars for a funeral party?

Excerpt from Chapter 2

Janis Joplin

.... She leaves Barney’s Beanery at about 1 a.m. She’s pounded more than a few screwdrivers and chased two Valium. But they haven’t helped her forget that Seth [her fiancé] had promised to be with her tonight. That he’s stood her up.

Another Saturday Night Swindle!

On the way back to the hotel now in her technicolor Porsche, she curses Seth. She wonders if she’ll ever see him again. Another fiancé DOA. Over a fucking shirt!

Or, maybe it’s the prenup. She’d mentioned it, he seemed cool with it, so she’d had her lawyer draw it up yesterday. She’d told Seth over the phone it would be ready to sign when he got back to L.A. While she was at it, she’d drawn up a new will, too. She hadn’t told him yet he wasn’t in it; but he had his own bread, right? So, why should he care?

She screeches into the Landmark parking lot, staggers out of her car and weaves her way to her room. She gropes in her dresser drawer and pulls out a brown paper bag her man, George, dropped by earlier, promising it was “primo shit.” He hadn’t mentioned that his “taster” was out of town for the weekend, so he didn’t know exactly how primo it was but he’d never had a disappointed customer.

Opening the bag, she scoops some scag into a Pepsi screw-top and cooks it over her Bic. “Fuck you, Seth,” she keeps muttering to herself. She draws the hot syrup into an eyedropper through a Number 25 needle. She tourniquets her purple sash around her arm and pulls it tight between her clenched teeth, needle poised. Then she hits herself.

Her hand goes slack and the needle falls to the floor. Her eyes float up under her lids as she draws in a breath; then her head collapses against her chest, mouth ajar, saliva collecting at the corner. She is draped in the chair like a rag doll. With a twitch, her eyes crack open...