Going Down with Janis

by Peggy Caserta and Dan Knapp

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0860072312
• ISBN13: 9780860072317
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Futura Publications
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Urban myth???

i read THIS book in high school, and *loaned* it to either Carol Imperato or Susie Cohen...and NEVER saw it again!!! As a chile i met Janis whilst i walked the streets of the Village in the mad hope of meeting Bob Dylan, and that fateful day when i happened to be by the Chelsea Hotel because i "heard" Jim Morrison was in town...and if Dylan was around, THEY would have to *summit,* right???...WE heard a woman whose voice was unmistakable shout---What are you kids doing...playing hookey??? We turned around, and there SHE was...and to this day i can STILL remember the vibrancy of her smile, the warmth of her soul. WHEN i first read "Going Down With Janis" i thought it was written by some starf**ker out to tarnish her reputation, but as the Jerry Springer mantra---We LOVE lesbians---attest, i was fascinated by the story. While i cannot attest to the accuracy of the story presented in this book...hell, my age hadn't even hit double digits when i met HER...the portrayal of Janis in THIS book is believable. She WAS a vulnerable woman from what i remember...and IF she was a lesbian, then i can only rejoice that she found SOME happiness with the author. A MUST READ for any afficianado!!!

To Live and Die Young in L.A.

This little book is a first-person account by Peggy Caserta (with Dan Knapp), and Peggy Caserta just about reeks from every page. The book reads like a novel, it's that engrossing. There's plenty of sex, mostly Peggy with female lovers, but she loves men, too. Some of her male idols, like Big Brother Sam Andrew, are painted as selfish, wimpy pigs. I see from his web page that Brother Sam has tried to make a writing career. Not a groupy, I'd never heard of him before reading this book, and after reading it I don't want to know any more. Another Big Brother, Peter Albin, indicated that Peggy's book was a sell-out to capitalize on her relationship with Janis, to make money to feed her drug habit. Whatever. There's not too much available on Janis, and this little memoir fills a gap, I think. Peggy holds no punches. I guess Dan Knapp helped her to keep from sounding like Peter Albin's sell-out. Peggy, instead, seems in this book like a loving person, kind of a big-sister-lover to Janis, as well as to another young lady (her Debbie from L.A.) and at the same time Peggy was a steady lover to a more "butch" lady, her girlfriend, Kimmie. Then there are all the other personalities of that day and age, late 1960s and early 1970s in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles and at Woodstock. One scene Peggy writes, I'll not soon forget: her and Janis fixing inside a stinky at Woodstock, with girls outside crying to come in, they have to defecate. "We know what you're doing in there, Janis!" one waiting girl supposedly called through the stinky door. Paranoid, Janis was like, "How could they know????" Janis seems more like a side figure in this memoir, well, a main side figure, but still the book tells much more about Peggy than about Janis, which is of course how a personal memoir has to be. Janis is gone, but, as they say, her spirit lives on in the next and the next generation. She was a unique individual, apparently a talented artist (I didn't especially like her music, but she was obviously unique, and by the way, I was there in Berkeley when she and Big Brother started out....I used to see Country Joe and the Fish in the People's Park in Berkeley in 1967-1968, where they gave free concerts). Diximus.

Fascinating portrait of Janis, her life and times.

This book has the best opening line of any book I've ever read. It is simply impossible not to continue to read after the first sentence. It is such a great grabber, setting the tone for the entire book, which is a true page turner. I promise, you will not be able to put this book down until you get to the last sentence. Full of hilarious antecdotes that take you right back to the '60s. Presenting the anything-goes, experimental attitudes of sex and drugs, the account is curiously 'innocent' at the same time. While you can see the obvious sections where editors wanted to make things a bit juicier (including the title of the book) , I think the book makes every attempt to portray the real friendship between Janis and Peggy, which was loving, genuine and honest. You do get a sense of the real Janis. As well as empathy about what an addict's life is like. You also understand the circumstances that led to her untimely death. Widespread heroin use was in its infancy, and was already in very common use among musicians. Perhaps people were coming to the initial conclusions about its dangers after experimenting with it. Janis was a happy, joyous, upbeat individual, not a tortured soul. Her death was an accident, as the book explains. So many people believe she overdosed purposely. this couldn't be further from the truth. Read about the real Janis Joplin here! Great biography...very well written. Highly recommend.

An under-appreciated classic

I have to admit that this is my favorite of the Janis biographies, and I have read them all. Like the singer herself, this book has had its share of mud slung at it over the years. It is a downtrodden and spat-upon book among the populace, unfairly so. Peggy Caserta, in my opinion, does not exploit Janis in this expose, but rather tells a story that brings Janis to life in so many creative and endearing ways that none of the other biographies ever accomplished. Sure, there are certain outrageous, pulp fiction moments that could have only been written by a man, in this case Don Knapp. But the bulk of this tale reveals a tender and affectionate portrait of Janis, one painted with humor, frankness and entertaining detail. Peggy Caserta has been dismissed over the years as someone who was more of an acquaintance to Janis than a real lover and friend. How, then, did Peggy become the one person Janis wanted helicoptered to Woodstock to join her at the monumental occasion if she were merely an insignificant sidekick?Peggy and Janis were lovers and addicts. This is the unvarnished truth of the matter. Hopefully Peggy will get her due someday with this under-appreciated book, and a publisher will come along to render it from the out-of-print status and bless us with a new edition, complete with an addendum to the story of Peggy herself, and how she has coped over the years with the invective that has been hurled at her for this book. She was not responsible for Janis's death. Janis was. Yet she has been cast as the villain by such biographers as Myra Friedman, whose overrated "Buried Alive" did more damage to Janis's memory than anything Peggy could have ever contemplated writing. And if you want to read an exploitive biography, try "Pearl, the Obsessions and Passions..." These are the writers who have trashed Janis, NOT Peggy.Upon reading this very unique book, one can only wonder what Peggy is up to these days, and hope she is faring well.

One of the best Joplin biographies I have ever read.

As a Joplin fan from way back, I thought this book was a great insight into, as Janis herself puts it, "the two hippest people in the world." This is one of those books that every fan of the 1960's culture should keep by their side, right next to "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Riders on the Storm". My only regret is that I lost my copy.