There's also quite a bit that's new in here, too - or, at least, was unfamiliar to me. He puts to rest, for example, the Did they or didn't they? question that has surrounded Lennon's vacation in Spain with manager Brian Epstein (they didn't), and accepts as fact many of the stories that expose John's darker side, such as his brutal beating of Cavern DJ Bob Wooler, or the lurid sexual fantasies involving his own mother. While there's much in here that's familiar, Norman uses both old and new sources to revisit apocryphal or second-hand stories - most of which are familiar to Beatle fans - and determine their veracity. I actually don't think Yoko's got anything to worry about Norman's book is both clear-eyed and appropriately sympathetic as it traces the arc of Lennon's all-too-brief life and career. However, after reading the final manuscript, 'Yoko Ono was upset by the book,' Norman tells us, 'and would not endorse it. 'In September 2003, I suggested to John's widow, Yoko Ono, that I should become his biographer,' writes Philip Norman in the Acknowledgements section of John Lennon: The Life.

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. “ haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work.” - New York Times 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. 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. 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. 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. Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom being a Beatle was never enough. For more than a quarter century, biographer Philip Norman's internationally bestselling Shout! has been unchallenged as the definitive biography of the Beatles.

John lennon by philip norman