John Lennon: The Life - Softcover

Norman, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060754028 ISBN 13: 9780060754020

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2009

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"Powerful and heartfelt."--Washington Post Book World

"[A] haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work."--New York Times Book Review

"[Norman] sharpens what we know about Lennon at just about every turn...devotees will relish the new information, while casual readers will find a familiar story told more truly than ever before."--Rolling Stone

"[Norman's] definitive biography draws impressively on exclusive and extensive interviews with Yoko Ono and, for the first time on the record, their son Sean...densely detailed, intricately woven and elegantly told, John Lennon: The Life neither condemns nor condones, nor does it consecrate its subject.--USA Today

"It's this level of detail that makes Norman's 822 pages such compulsive reading."--Bloomberg News

"The bad news is that John Lennon: The Life is so rich and enveloping that it demands to be read...it's a clear-eyed and compassionate study of a man...Grade: A-."--Entertainment Weekly

From the Publisher:

Since John Lennon's assassination in 1980 neither of the two attempts at a full scale biography of this towering 20th century icon have succeeded in getting to the bottom of the story or bringing John alive on the page. Philip Norman's John Lennon: the Life is thus the first definitive biography and the best ever likely to be written. During three years of research, Norman had access to all the major players in the story, notably John's widow, Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candour about the inner workings of their marriage, and their son Sean, who provides a moving reminiscence of the father he lost at the age of five. Co-operation has also come from the likes of Sir Paul McCartney; the Beatles' record-producer, Sir George Martin; and the late Neil Aspinall, the band's closest associate, who broke a 40-year rule not to talk to writers in speaking extensively to Norman. The book in addition has unprecedented access to never-before-seen letters, family documents, artworks and photographs. Its masterly narrative is presented with the historical sweep and literary verve that has made Philip Norman's Shout: the Beatles in their Generation a classic of biography, in any genre, since 1982.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0060754028
• ISBN 13: 9780060754020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 864