John Lennon: The Life
by Philip Norman

Not quite definitive, but close enough

Just what the world needs: another book about John Lennon. Even as sources of “new and rediscovered” information dry up, there are presently about 70 tomes – with more on the way – concerning him. The difference here is Philip Norman: the music biographer’s music biographer; infallible master of the attributive adjective, and a guaranteed provider of sparkling, richly-detailed text. Moreover, he’s enlivened and even undermined the old, old story via first-time interviews with all manner of relations, friends, lovers and other hitherto silent key players. As evidenced by the revelation that Aunt Mimi apparently remained a virgin into widowhood, he’s ventured into forbidden and often inexplicable territory.

Despite a tendency to soft-pedal Lennon’s more foolish exploits and preachings in the later 60s and beyond, Norman’s account of his early life, and leadership of The Beatles, overshadows the final 10 years. This is partly because that shorter period isn’t as interesting, and partly because the author seems obliged to make more of his man’s principally so-so output back then (though he isn’t afraid to give the over-valued Imagine what it deserves).

This might be not only the most entertaining work in Norman’s oeuvre but, certainly as far as the pre-Yoko era is concerned, one of the most astonishing feats of scholarship and research you’re likely to encounter.

ISBN 9780007197415

Reviewed by Alan Clayson
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