Being John Lennon

November 15, 2018

Longtime British music journalist Connolly tries to unravel the complicated personality of John Lennon. The author tracks Lennon's unstable childhood, the formation of the Beatles, Lennon's shotgun marriage to Cynthia Powell, and the birth of his son Julian. The book also covers the pressures of Beatlemania, John's relationships with manager Brian Epstein and second wife Yoko Ono, a debauched 18 months during the Seventies (the Lost Weekend), his retirement from rock and roll after the birth of his son Sean, and Lennon's murder in 1980. Having interviewed the Beatles and their coterie since the Sixties, Connolly contributes several new nuggets about the complex rock icon, whom he describes as sometimes caring but verbally abusive, insecure but supremely confident, striving for both working-class credibility and sophistication, lonely at the center of international attention, self-revelatory but untruthful, and a leader who delegated difficult tasks to others. Writing in a breezy style, the author adds to the already substantial Lennon literature, which includes Ray Coleman's John Winston Lennon and Philip Norman's John Lennon. VERDICT An intriguing option for those unfamiliar with the highly imaginative but self-destructive Beatle.--David P. Szatmary, formerly with the Univ. of Washington, Seattle

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2018
Veteran English writer and journalist Connolly (Being Elvis, 2016) has written a fat, entertaining biography of the restless soul who was John Lennon. Instead of uncovering anything terribly new or revealing, he has done an excellent job of illuminating all the phases of Lennon's complicated life and career: his middle-class childhood in suburban Liverpool, meeting Paul, the heyday of Beatlemania, the breakup of the Fab Four, and the solo years leading up to his tragic death. Throughout, Connolly captures all aspects of Lennon, who was, like most of us, a mass of contradictions. Each chapter begins with a Lennon quote that sets the stage for what follows: on leadership ( When the dirty work came, I had to be the leader ); his reactions to Beatlemania ( This isn't show business. It's something else ); his image ( The radicalism was phony, really, because it was out of guilt ); and, most poignantly perhaps, his years as a househusband in New York ( I'm blessed with a second chance ). A welcome new perspective on an endlessly influential and compelling artist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)