For more than a quarter century, biographer Philip Norman's
internationally bestselling Shout! has been unchallenged as the
definitive biography of the Beatles. Now, at last, Norman turns his
formidable talent to the Beatle for whom being a Beatle was never
enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented
access to all the major characters, Norman presents the comprehensive
and most revealing portrait of John Lennon ever published.
This masterly biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every
aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have
turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of
research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new
information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore--his
upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and
student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with
Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese
performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his
experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and
drugs. The book's numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir
Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon--whose moving
reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before--and Yoko Ono, who
speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her
marriage to John.
"[A] haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work." -New York Times
Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the
whole man in all his endless contradictions--tough and cynical,
hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure--and reveals
how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his
music for the rest of his days.
