John Lennon: By his family
On December 8th., 1980 John Lennon was shot as he entered his home at the Dakota Building in New York. And still today we are fascinated by the story of this man who started out singing with his group (The Quarrymen) in Liverpool, morphed into the ‘Beatle John’ and then became one of the most well-known people on earth.
Millions of words have been written and I’m inclined to suspect that a lot of money has been made by the industry of writing about Lennon’s life. And yet how many of these authors actually knew the man? I read a book recently by an author who had spent two hours with John in a photoshoot in New York – that evidently have him the authority to write a book, including details of John’s early years.
Of course, several of the books that are on the market are immaculately researched. But this can be something of a vicious circle – where do those research materials themselves come from? How accurate are they? Who can really know the truth, especially about John Lennon’s early years? The remaining two Beatles, at their now-advanced ages, are unlikely to do so. His widow Yoko, now more than eighty years old, knows nothing about his early years and anyway, she has been known to be perfectly happy to re-write history even to the extent of legally preventing the publication of books that she considered ‘mean to John’.
His two sons can’t give us an accurate picture either. Sean was just a small boy when his father was shot and killed, as was Julian when he lost his father due to the breakup of his parents’ marriage.
Over the years, countless books have been written about John’s early years. Often these referred to his ‘promiscuous’ mother was was such a bad parent that the boy had to be brought up by his strict aunt. Some books (often American) tell of his ‘working-class’ background. Most say that he was abandoned by his parents as a youngster. Several imply that he was nothing more than a juvenile delinquent as a teenager.
The book you see on the left was written by John’s half-sister. She describes in detail the truth about John’s upbringing and about their mother. She pulls no punches.
Is this the definitive work about Lennon?
Use the link below to visit Amazon and learn more about this fascinating book.
Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon by Baird, Julia (2008) Paperback
Cynthia Lennon was with John since his days at art college. She was a fellow student and became his girlfriend years before the Beatles were formed.
They married in the very earliest Beatle days (Cynthia discovered she was pregnant) and the couple lived in an apartment lent to them by the Beatles then manager, Brian Epstein.
Cynthia was with John throughout those early day – in Hamburg, in the Cavern Club in Liverpool.. Shew was with them when they first toured America and accompanied them through their transcendental meditation phrase.
She saw John change from the teenager she loved to the hermit-like man who was assassinated in 1980.
In this book you can read all about her life with John – including the details of their marriage breakup when John had an affair with Yoko Ono.
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John: By Cynthia Lennon
