When talking to Ray Manzarek, you get an eerie feeling that there might be a ghost in the room. As he sits in a Borders bookstore in Northridge, Calif., the mystical energy of The Doors still surrounds him, and one can’t help but wonder if the Lizard King is not looking over his shoulder.
Manzarek never tires of reminiscing about his old friend, Jim Morrison, and every anecdote is charming and fascinating. In “”Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors,”” Manzarek tells the true story of the band. In his new book, “”The Poet in Exile,”” Manzarek adds a provocative (albeit fictitious) final chapter to the saga of The Doors.
While “”The Poet in Exile”” is a work of fiction, Manzarek admits its plot closely resembles the story of The Doors.
“”It’s very close,”” he said. “”It’s almost the same characters.”” In the book, a keyboardist named Roy from a famous 1960s rock band starts to receive cryptic postcards signed only with the letter “”J.”” Roy believes that this could only be the correspondence of his band’s lead singer, the “”Snake Man.”” Except there is a catch — the Snake Man died in Paris … or did he?
Convinced that the Snake Man is alive, Roy traces the postcards to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean. There Roy is reunited with the former rock god, who tells him the story of how he faked his death to find enlightenment and love in a remote tropical paradise.
While “”The Poet in Exile”” leaves you wondering just who — or what — is buried in Morrison’s grave, Manzarek points out the underlying message of the book: “”The most important thing of the book is what happened to the poet after he stopped drinking,”” Manzarek said. “”This book is actually an excuse to talk about consciousness. This is a man’s journey into consciousness. There’s nothing more important for you, or for me … and I [wrote] it in a rock ‘n’ roll fable.””
At this book signing in Northridge, fans of The Doors — many of them in high school and college — are just as excited by Manzarek as their parents were in 1966. When asked to explain the timelessness of The Doors, Manzarek’s answer is simple.
“”They represent freedom, freedom from convention.”” he says. “”Freedom to stand free as a man or a woman on the planet if you have the courage and can break free of your conventional religion, politics, education. We represent freedom. I think it’s as simple as that.””