John Lennon: The Life

For more than a quarter century, biographer Philip Normans 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 Lennons muchchronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a nearsecular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the bestknown episodes of Lennon folklorehis upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatlebusting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The books numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennonwhose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen beforeand 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 TimesHonest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictionstough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecureand reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days.