John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth: a Biography

John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth: a Biography
Elizabeth Partridge
Viking, New York, 2005
232 pp., $24.99
ISBN: 0-6700-5954-4

Annotation: Biographer Partridge follows John Lennon, founder of The Beatles, from his childhood in Liverpool, England through his rise to fame as a rock musician and controversy as a social activist.

Review: Through this excellent introduction to one of rock and pop music's seminal songwriters, many young adults will find reflections of their own lives in Lennon's troubles in school, conflicts with authority and parents, and search for his true identity. Abandoned by his parents into the care of his aunt and uncle, Lennon struggles to overcome the emotional traumas of his youth through his art, his writing and his evolving political consciousness.

Fortunately, Partridge does not romanticize Lennon. He is here, warts and all. At several turns vain, arrogant, cruel to his family and friends (and even strangers, especially those he terms "cripples") and otherwise self-centered, Lennon self-medicates his pain with hard drugs and extramarital affairs. Sadly, he neglects his son Julian in ways that echo similar treatment by his own self-indulgent parents.

Partridge writes in clear, straightforward prose that explains Lennon's more erratic behavior without attempting to justify it. The unfortunate effect of Partridge's style, as well as her unrelenting coverage of Lennon's abuses of self and others, is a flattening of Lennon's brilliant wit and remarkable artistic achievements. Nevertheless, young readers unfamiliar with the cultural and political changes of the 1960s and '70s will receive a rich and by no means boring historical lesson. Partridge portrays Lennon's self-redemption toward the end of his life, abruptly ended by his murder, with appropriate notes of sympathy and of tragedy.