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John: A Biography
Now in paperback, the New York Times bestselling exposé of the real John Lennon
The time has come when I feel ready to tell the truth about John and me, our years together and the years since his death. There is so much that I have never said, so many incidents I have never spoken of and so many feelings I have never great love on one hand; pain, torment, and humiliation on the other. Only I know what really happened between us, why we stayed together, why we parted, and the price I have paid for being John’s wife. —From the Introduction
The time has come when I feel ready to tell the truth about John and me, our years together and the years since his death. There is so much that I have never said, so many incidents I have never spoken of and so many feelings I have never great love on one hand; pain, torment, and humiliation on the other. Only I know what really happened between us, why we stayed together, why we parted, and the price I have paid for being John’s wife. —From the Introduction
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2005
About the author
Cynthia Lennon
7 books44 followersCynthia Lennon (née Powell) was the first wife of musician John Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral UK, and gained a place at the Liverpool College of Art.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 544 reviews
October 9, 2013
Dear John,
You were kind of a jerk to me when we were kids first going out. I mean, you really scared the shit out of me. I understand all the problems you had growing up in a broken family and all. It was definitely hard on you. So I stuck it out and stayed with you, even when the Beatles were forming and getting big. That wasn't easy, you and the boys always being torn away in different directions. I didn't know where you were from one minute to the next. But again, I stayed by your side and how'd you repay me? By shacking up with that Asian slut!…sorry. I'm sorry. I promised I wasn't going to do that. I'm above it, I've moved on, and so have you, obviously. If I'm being honest, I guess I don't fully understand what you saw in her. I'm not going to say anything against her, I don't even really know her. But whatever, it happened. I wish it hadn't, but that's life. Btw, our son is doing fine, if you care.
Sincerely,
Cynth
PS: I am truly sorry you got shot to death.
You were kind of a jerk to me when we were kids first going out. I mean, you really scared the shit out of me. I understand all the problems you had growing up in a broken family and all. It was definitely hard on you. So I stuck it out and stayed with you, even when the Beatles were forming and getting big. That wasn't easy, you and the boys always being torn away in different directions. I didn't know where you were from one minute to the next. But again, I stayed by your side and how'd you repay me? By shacking up with that Asian slut!…sorry. I'm sorry. I promised I wasn't going to do that. I'm above it, I've moved on, and so have you, obviously. If I'm being honest, I guess I don't fully understand what you saw in her. I'm not going to say anything against her, I don't even really know her. But whatever, it happened. I wish it hadn't, but that's life. Btw, our son is doing fine, if you care.
Sincerely,
Cynth
PS: I am truly sorry you got shot to death.
March 9, 2008
It's no secret I adore Cynthia Powell Lennon, and I have for years.
If you come across this book without knowing her, you might expect this to be a trashy exploitative novel on what it's like to be John Lennon's ex-wife. In that case, you're going to be disappointed.
She doesn't shy away from presenting John at his worst, but her story is neither mean-spirited nor vindicative. It is open and honest, a story of the way things were.
//
Her story is classic good girl meets bad boy, only the bad boy grows up to be John Lennon. When she talks about being overcome with jealous nausea watching her friend stroke John's hair in their high school class (this being the first time she realizes she's developing a crush on him) -- you know exactly where she's coming from.
I'm glad she is finally able to stick up for herself -- she's given her story before, and written a book before, but things that were only hinted at earlier (John's outbursts, Yoko's dismissiveness, the way John's Aunt Mimi raised him and how that affected his personality) she has finally felt free to tell.
//
My only knock is that I found the retelling of the historical events in John's life and in Beatles history a bit redundant. I'd have enjoyed it much better if it was only Cynthia's first hand recollections -- though of course she needed the exposition to make the book accessible to more than just people who are obsessive about the Beatles.
That being said, I did learn things from this book, and it also solved some long unanswered questions I've had regarding acquaintances like Magic Alex, Fred Seaman, and May Pang. Any time a new Beatles book can actually give me something new besides a couple one-liners, that's a treat.
If you come across this book without knowing her, you might expect this to be a trashy exploitative novel on what it's like to be John Lennon's ex-wife. In that case, you're going to be disappointed.
She doesn't shy away from presenting John at his worst, but her story is neither mean-spirited nor vindicative. It is open and honest, a story of the way things were.
//
Her story is classic good girl meets bad boy, only the bad boy grows up to be John Lennon. When she talks about being overcome with jealous nausea watching her friend stroke John's hair in their high school class (this being the first time she realizes she's developing a crush on him) -- you know exactly where she's coming from.
I'm glad she is finally able to stick up for herself -- she's given her story before, and written a book before, but things that were only hinted at earlier (John's outbursts, Yoko's dismissiveness, the way John's Aunt Mimi raised him and how that affected his personality) she has finally felt free to tell.
//
My only knock is that I found the retelling of the historical events in John's life and in Beatles history a bit redundant. I'd have enjoyed it much better if it was only Cynthia's first hand recollections -- though of course she needed the exposition to make the book accessible to more than just people who are obsessive about the Beatles.
That being said, I did learn things from this book, and it also solved some long unanswered questions I've had regarding acquaintances like Magic Alex, Fred Seaman, and May Pang. Any time a new Beatles book can actually give me something new besides a couple one-liners, that's a treat.
November 1, 2009
This proves an interesting read for John Lennon-ophiles. However, Cynthia Lennon comes across as something of a deluded and unreliable narrator who unwittingly communicates to the reader that she does not have the facility to understand the complex man John was, or have any idea what he was really up to.
Cynthia paints a picture of a dim young lass sat at home with the baby, naively thinking her touring husband was being faithful and was as obsessed with her as she was with him. He wasn't, not by a long shot. Cynthia's world view appears equally naive. John, the great experimenter, could not have had gay tendencies, she muses, as he had regular sex with her, his wife, a woman - case closed. John himself admitted to a number of friends (Shotton, Davies) that he'd had a dalliance with Epstein in Spain and his relationship with Sutcliff had homoerotic undertones. There are those who believe that his feelings for Paul also strayed into gay territory. Whatever the truth about Paul, it cannot be denied that John tried everything and it is highly likely that he tried homosexual sex at some stage - that there could be such a blurring of the sexual boundries does not cross Cynthia's naive mind.
There is also some revisionism here - one of the most quoted Cynthia stories used to be the episode on the plane back from India when John, drunk on brandy alexanders, confessed to sleeping with a multitude of other women - leaving Cynthia to arrive in the UK in tears. She was no longer able to ignore the painfully obvious fact that her husband was one of the most promiscuous men on the London scene. Cynthia has told this story on record herself in the past, but in 'John' she omits it completely and rather has John approach her while she was doing the washing up at home, to embrace her and tell her that there had been 'some' other women but she was always the 'only one' for him. This version smacks of wishful thinking on Cynthia's part. Also, in 'John' Cynthia states that she pushed 'Magic Alex' away when he tried to seduce her when she had fled Kenwood having walked in on John and Yoko. Again, Cynthia has admitted in the past that she did indeed sleep with magic alex on that occasion, drunk on wine and shell-shocked after the days events. In 'John' Cynthia revises that story - painting herself as the ever faithful wife. In truth, Cynthia probably did sleep with Alex in the misguided and drunk notion that it would rouse John's old jealousies - in fact, it later transpired that John had encouraged Alex to do the same in order to strengthen his divorce case. In regards to their break up, Cynthia relates a new story of how John's jealousies returned for a moment during one of her last meetings with him. Yoko had left the room to get a glass of water, she says, when John launched into an attack saying Cynthia was no innocent flower and accused her of having an affair with a young American at the Ashram in India - John said George had passed him a note the American left for Cynthia. It is interesting that Yoko is 'out of the room' for this incident, and John and George are no longer around to beg to differ. This is an example of the incidents that just do not ring true, somehow - and conveniently no one can say they did not happen. In fact, John had suspected Cynthia of having an affair with Roberto Bassinini, the son at the hotel where she was staying in Italy when Alex arrived to tell her that John wanted a divorce. In light of the fact that Cynthia later married Roberto, this does not seem wholly improbable. And really, if she didn't, she should have. Still Cynthia is determined to portray herself as the loyal doormat.
Cynthia has form in regard to inventing or leaving out facts that detract from her the ideal relationship she wants to project. In her first book she omitted the fact that Julian was conceived outside wedlock (an important fact as her pregnancy was the reason Lennon proposed). She received a lot of flack for that, and this has been corrected in 'John' as is the fact that she was a virgin when she got together with John (as she claimed in 'A Twist of Lennon' - presumably because John was still alive when she wrote it and he'd believed her to have been a virgin). Other aspects of her revised story still do not ring true,however, and it is hard to trust her. In short, there is more than a hint of the passive aggressive manipulator about Cynthia.
There can be little doubt that she was treated abominably by Lennon, right back to their early days together in Liverpool - when Lennon had girls lined up for sex after he saw Cynthia home each night. One has to ask how complicit Cynthia was in creating this abusive relationship. With shocking submissiveness, Cynthia seemed more than willing to put up with his cheating and selfishness - akin to those biker women who write 'property of (boyfriend's name)' on their jackets. Cynthia never confronted John but rather was a willing doormat - and then she married the guy. One has to ask, why? What was the pay off? Why would a woman stand for such endless disrespect? The answer seems to be unhealthy obsession on her part and perhaps she enjoyed the status of being Lennon's bird. True, Lennon was a mere art student when she met him - but he was a big fish in a small pond. Lennon was the Art College's hard chaw, the rebel, the clown, the rocker and even the Art College's star pupil, Stu Sutcliff gravitated towards his charisma and aura. Dating Lennon gave Cynthia Powell a lot more street cred and status than dating the window cleaner's son from Hoylake whom she had been sleeping with (which in itself was a pretty racy thing to be doing in 1950s Liverpool - futher proof that Cynthia was never quite what she seemed). It is often said that Cynthia fell for John when he was a nobody, but Lennon was never a nobody, Cynthia fell for an art school legend, who went on to become a Liverpool Mersey beat legend and finally a world legend. Lennon was always a catch and Cynthia felt he was out of her league from the beginning.
Cynthia's Liverpool friends made sure she was aware of John's consistent cheating, but she chose to ignore their warnings. She did not want to loose John - which was likely to happen if she confronted him. It seems Cynthia was a slave to her own dysfunctional obsession with Lennon - and their marriage clearly settled into passive agressive manipulation on her part and misogyny, psychological abuse and serial infidelity on his.
When John met Yoko, he finally met someone who wouldn't put up with his shit. Here was a woman who demanded to be treated equally and with respect. With the only insight she demonstrates in the entire book, Cynthia draws parallels between Mimi and Yoko. That John saw aspects of both his mother (eccentricity) and Mimi (strong-will) in Yoko, is easy to believe. Yoko was, in many ways, more typical of the females John had been surrounded with during his formative years. In fact, the book leads one to wonder what John ever saw in the insipid, conventional Cynthia. Perhaps it was a case of opposites attracting, perhaps it was that Cynthia the limpet was a safe bet who would never leave him no matter how cruel and nasty he could be. Whatever it was, it is an area of Lennon's life that deserves further scrutiny. Lennon dated Cynthia for four years before she got pregnant (albeit with a host of affairs on the side), so he clearly had some need for her and liked having her around. This book appears to want to prove that John Lennon was in love with Cynthia Powell, in fact his behaviour towards the first Mrs Lennon rather proves he was not, at least, not really. This book did not enlighten me as to why he ever hooked up with, stayed with and married Cyn - I've yet to read a book that comes up with a satisfactory theory on that one.
Sadly for Cynthia, she never got over her Lennon obsession and it is her greatest tragedy that the man who consumed her as a young woman is now an icon and she has no hope of ever breaking free/forgetting him - indeed she makes her living from books and interviews about him and who can blame her as John Lennon ruined her life in so many other ways, he owes her this financial opportunity, at least.
One also feels sorry for Julian, who wrote the slightly bitter forward, as he did not ask to be born into this dysfunction and his father was undeniably lacking in parental skills.
Still, Julian has had material compensations that he would not have had had John never made it big. If the Beatles had failed and the Lennons had settled into life in Liverpool, sooner or later John would have legged it, leaving Cyn and Julian in a council house to fend for themselves. Julian should count his blessings that this was not the case.
If you bear all the above in mind and read Cynthia's book with that pinch of salt in hand, 'John' is an interesting read.
Cynthia paints a picture of a dim young lass sat at home with the baby, naively thinking her touring husband was being faithful and was as obsessed with her as she was with him. He wasn't, not by a long shot. Cynthia's world view appears equally naive. John, the great experimenter, could not have had gay tendencies, she muses, as he had regular sex with her, his wife, a woman - case closed. John himself admitted to a number of friends (Shotton, Davies) that he'd had a dalliance with Epstein in Spain and his relationship with Sutcliff had homoerotic undertones. There are those who believe that his feelings for Paul also strayed into gay territory. Whatever the truth about Paul, it cannot be denied that John tried everything and it is highly likely that he tried homosexual sex at some stage - that there could be such a blurring of the sexual boundries does not cross Cynthia's naive mind.
There is also some revisionism here - one of the most quoted Cynthia stories used to be the episode on the plane back from India when John, drunk on brandy alexanders, confessed to sleeping with a multitude of other women - leaving Cynthia to arrive in the UK in tears. She was no longer able to ignore the painfully obvious fact that her husband was one of the most promiscuous men on the London scene. Cynthia has told this story on record herself in the past, but in 'John' she omits it completely and rather has John approach her while she was doing the washing up at home, to embrace her and tell her that there had been 'some' other women but she was always the 'only one' for him. This version smacks of wishful thinking on Cynthia's part. Also, in 'John' Cynthia states that she pushed 'Magic Alex' away when he tried to seduce her when she had fled Kenwood having walked in on John and Yoko. Again, Cynthia has admitted in the past that she did indeed sleep with magic alex on that occasion, drunk on wine and shell-shocked after the days events. In 'John' Cynthia revises that story - painting herself as the ever faithful wife. In truth, Cynthia probably did sleep with Alex in the misguided and drunk notion that it would rouse John's old jealousies - in fact, it later transpired that John had encouraged Alex to do the same in order to strengthen his divorce case. In regards to their break up, Cynthia relates a new story of how John's jealousies returned for a moment during one of her last meetings with him. Yoko had left the room to get a glass of water, she says, when John launched into an attack saying Cynthia was no innocent flower and accused her of having an affair with a young American at the Ashram in India - John said George had passed him a note the American left for Cynthia. It is interesting that Yoko is 'out of the room' for this incident, and John and George are no longer around to beg to differ. This is an example of the incidents that just do not ring true, somehow - and conveniently no one can say they did not happen. In fact, John had suspected Cynthia of having an affair with Roberto Bassinini, the son at the hotel where she was staying in Italy when Alex arrived to tell her that John wanted a divorce. In light of the fact that Cynthia later married Roberto, this does not seem wholly improbable. And really, if she didn't, she should have. Still Cynthia is determined to portray herself as the loyal doormat.
Cynthia has form in regard to inventing or leaving out facts that detract from her the ideal relationship she wants to project. In her first book she omitted the fact that Julian was conceived outside wedlock (an important fact as her pregnancy was the reason Lennon proposed). She received a lot of flack for that, and this has been corrected in 'John' as is the fact that she was a virgin when she got together with John (as she claimed in 'A Twist of Lennon' - presumably because John was still alive when she wrote it and he'd believed her to have been a virgin). Other aspects of her revised story still do not ring true,however, and it is hard to trust her. In short, there is more than a hint of the passive aggressive manipulator about Cynthia.
There can be little doubt that she was treated abominably by Lennon, right back to their early days together in Liverpool - when Lennon had girls lined up for sex after he saw Cynthia home each night. One has to ask how complicit Cynthia was in creating this abusive relationship. With shocking submissiveness, Cynthia seemed more than willing to put up with his cheating and selfishness - akin to those biker women who write 'property of (boyfriend's name)' on their jackets. Cynthia never confronted John but rather was a willing doormat - and then she married the guy. One has to ask, why? What was the pay off? Why would a woman stand for such endless disrespect? The answer seems to be unhealthy obsession on her part and perhaps she enjoyed the status of being Lennon's bird. True, Lennon was a mere art student when she met him - but he was a big fish in a small pond. Lennon was the Art College's hard chaw, the rebel, the clown, the rocker and even the Art College's star pupil, Stu Sutcliff gravitated towards his charisma and aura. Dating Lennon gave Cynthia Powell a lot more street cred and status than dating the window cleaner's son from Hoylake whom she had been sleeping with (which in itself was a pretty racy thing to be doing in 1950s Liverpool - futher proof that Cynthia was never quite what she seemed). It is often said that Cynthia fell for John when he was a nobody, but Lennon was never a nobody, Cynthia fell for an art school legend, who went on to become a Liverpool Mersey beat legend and finally a world legend. Lennon was always a catch and Cynthia felt he was out of her league from the beginning.
Cynthia's Liverpool friends made sure she was aware of John's consistent cheating, but she chose to ignore their warnings. She did not want to loose John - which was likely to happen if she confronted him. It seems Cynthia was a slave to her own dysfunctional obsession with Lennon - and their marriage clearly settled into passive agressive manipulation on her part and misogyny, psychological abuse and serial infidelity on his.
When John met Yoko, he finally met someone who wouldn't put up with his shit. Here was a woman who demanded to be treated equally and with respect. With the only insight she demonstrates in the entire book, Cynthia draws parallels between Mimi and Yoko. That John saw aspects of both his mother (eccentricity) and Mimi (strong-will) in Yoko, is easy to believe. Yoko was, in many ways, more typical of the females John had been surrounded with during his formative years. In fact, the book leads one to wonder what John ever saw in the insipid, conventional Cynthia. Perhaps it was a case of opposites attracting, perhaps it was that Cynthia the limpet was a safe bet who would never leave him no matter how cruel and nasty he could be. Whatever it was, it is an area of Lennon's life that deserves further scrutiny. Lennon dated Cynthia for four years before she got pregnant (albeit with a host of affairs on the side), so he clearly had some need for her and liked having her around. This book appears to want to prove that John Lennon was in love with Cynthia Powell, in fact his behaviour towards the first Mrs Lennon rather proves he was not, at least, not really. This book did not enlighten me as to why he ever hooked up with, stayed with and married Cyn - I've yet to read a book that comes up with a satisfactory theory on that one.
Sadly for Cynthia, she never got over her Lennon obsession and it is her greatest tragedy that the man who consumed her as a young woman is now an icon and she has no hope of ever breaking free/forgetting him - indeed she makes her living from books and interviews about him and who can blame her as John Lennon ruined her life in so many other ways, he owes her this financial opportunity, at least.
One also feels sorry for Julian, who wrote the slightly bitter forward, as he did not ask to be born into this dysfunction and his father was undeniably lacking in parental skills.
Still, Julian has had material compensations that he would not have had had John never made it big. If the Beatles had failed and the Lennons had settled into life in Liverpool, sooner or later John would have legged it, leaving Cyn and Julian in a council house to fend for themselves. Julian should count his blessings that this was not the case.
If you bear all the above in mind and read Cynthia's book with that pinch of salt in hand, 'John' is an interesting read.
January 21, 2024
* This isn't really a review of the book but more musings on the topic of the Beatles.*
Similar to my Jane Austen binges, I get periodically obsessed with the Beatles. I'll read pretty much anything about them. I can't remember exactly what kicked off my current, urgent need to see what Cynthia had to say, but I really enjoyed John. I think Cynthia does a fair job of presenting her version of the truth.
She and John fell in love as teenagers, before the Beatles even existed. Unlike Patti Boyd (who had a much more interesting story to tell but wrote an abysmal book about it Wonderful Tonight) Cynthia captures what it must have been like to be an intimate part of the fun and heady early days of Beatlemania.
With the perspective of age, it's hard for me not to feel a bit for John, who did the right thing by marrying his pregnant girlfriend (as having a child out of wedlock was very difficult in those days) but had no way of knowing what his life was about to become. Out of all of humanity, there are/were only four people who will ever experience what it was like to be a Beatle. To be a very young man suddenly presented with unimaginable fame and fortune, with the world at his feet, I can sympathize with the temptation he faced and the difficulty of being a faithful husband to his high school sweetheart. No one except the two of them know what their marriage was really like, Cynthia certainly presents a compelling case that John was a giant douche in the way he finally ended it.
What I find impossible to understand or sympathize with, and what Cynthia does an especially poignant job of describing, is his miserable treatment of their son, Julian. I can never see an article or picture of that guy without wishing I could give him a big hug.
Similar to my Jane Austen binges, I get periodically obsessed with the Beatles. I'll read pretty much anything about them. I can't remember exactly what kicked off my current, urgent need to see what Cynthia had to say, but I really enjoyed John. I think Cynthia does a fair job of presenting her version of the truth.
She and John fell in love as teenagers, before the Beatles even existed. Unlike Patti Boyd (who had a much more interesting story to tell but wrote an abysmal book about it Wonderful Tonight) Cynthia captures what it must have been like to be an intimate part of the fun and heady early days of Beatlemania.
With the perspective of age, it's hard for me not to feel a bit for John, who did the right thing by marrying his pregnant girlfriend (as having a child out of wedlock was very difficult in those days) but had no way of knowing what his life was about to become. Out of all of humanity, there are/were only four people who will ever experience what it was like to be a Beatle. To be a very young man suddenly presented with unimaginable fame and fortune, with the world at his feet, I can sympathize with the temptation he faced and the difficulty of being a faithful husband to his high school sweetheart. No one except the two of them know what their marriage was really like, Cynthia certainly presents a compelling case that John was a giant douche in the way he finally ended it.
What I find impossible to understand or sympathize with, and what Cynthia does an especially poignant job of describing, is his miserable treatment of their son, Julian. I can never see an article or picture of that guy without wishing I could give him a big hug.
March 11, 2008
I actually got this book by accident. I was looking for a recent John Lennon biography (call it a John Lennon kick I was on) and w/o looking at the author I put this one on hold at the library.
The author is his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, who unfortunately has become a footnote in the Beatles/John Lennon history. When I mentioned this to my wife or friends at work when they see what I am reading, they only think of Yoko Ono. About the only way people do know of Cynthia is if you mention "Julian Lennon's mom."
I guess that is fair as Yoko did so much to cement her legacy on the John Lennon name--for good or ill.
This book was an unexpected pleasure, because it did dig deep into the pre-Beatles history when John and Cynthia met as teenagers in college. This was in the very early days of John having a band of any sort. This perspective was fresh because it has been overshadowed and unfortunately forgotten due to how large and fabled the Beatles became in such a short time.
Like I said the book was a pleasant surprise from what I was expecting. I usually do not like these types of "tell alls" and this one really was not that at all. Though I did almost expect that once I saw the author's name. But I gave it a shot and was glad I did. I think so many people who love John Lennon and the Beatles have an almost unrealistic and mythological sense of who he was. Reading about him from the very early years on to how he treated his first family and almost was able to have a reconciliation before he was gunned down, was sobering. I love the Beatles and John has always been one of my favorite songwriters. I also fell into that trap of believing the myth (especially after seeing a movie like "U.S. Vs John Lennon").
However you do realize that celebrities are also human. With human needs and human foibles. Warts and all as the cliche goes. Some might read of John's sometimes explosive temper or cruelty towards Cynthia and Julian and come 180 degrees and no longer appreciate him. For me, it only deepens my appreciation for him as an artist because he was real and frail.
And for the guy that is always seeking to stretch my musical knowledge to the limit, this book added tons of Beatles lore and trivia to my vast quantities already. :)
The author is his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, who unfortunately has become a footnote in the Beatles/John Lennon history. When I mentioned this to my wife or friends at work when they see what I am reading, they only think of Yoko Ono. About the only way people do know of Cynthia is if you mention "Julian Lennon's mom."
I guess that is fair as Yoko did so much to cement her legacy on the John Lennon name--for good or ill.
This book was an unexpected pleasure, because it did dig deep into the pre-Beatles history when John and Cynthia met as teenagers in college. This was in the very early days of John having a band of any sort. This perspective was fresh because it has been overshadowed and unfortunately forgotten due to how large and fabled the Beatles became in such a short time.
Like I said the book was a pleasant surprise from what I was expecting. I usually do not like these types of "tell alls" and this one really was not that at all. Though I did almost expect that once I saw the author's name. But I gave it a shot and was glad I did. I think so many people who love John Lennon and the Beatles have an almost unrealistic and mythological sense of who he was. Reading about him from the very early years on to how he treated his first family and almost was able to have a reconciliation before he was gunned down, was sobering. I love the Beatles and John has always been one of my favorite songwriters. I also fell into that trap of believing the myth (especially after seeing a movie like "U.S. Vs John Lennon").
However you do realize that celebrities are also human. With human needs and human foibles. Warts and all as the cliche goes. Some might read of John's sometimes explosive temper or cruelty towards Cynthia and Julian and come 180 degrees and no longer appreciate him. For me, it only deepens my appreciation for him as an artist because he was real and frail.
And for the guy that is always seeking to stretch my musical knowledge to the limit, this book added tons of Beatles lore and trivia to my vast quantities already. :)
July 21, 2018
When Cynthia first met John Lennon he was an 18 year old teddy boy more interested in being class clown and playing his guitar then focusing on school work. Both students at the Liverpool College of Art, Cynthia soon found herself looking forward to seeing him, laughing at John’s sharp wit and swooning when he’d play a tune or two after classes. It wasn’t long before they became a couple, but right from the start Cynthia realized life with John would never be simple. “He wanted me with him for as much of the time as possible which meant that very early in our relationship I had to choose between him and my other needs and responsibilities.”
Cynthia chose to put John first even with all that meant. Within 5 years they would marry, Julian would be born and Beatlemania would become a worldwide phenomenon. While fame and fortune opened many doors it also came with a significant price. Fans of The Beatles were now camping outside their home, the press followed them everywhere they went and the loneliness of having John away most of the year was difficult for Cynthia. Even when they were together, attending swanky events and partying with all the hottest celebrities Cynthia could never shake the feeling that she didn’t belong.
When John discovered psychedelic drugs, Cynthia began to feel an even greater distance growing between them. Cynthia also had increasing suspicions about John’s fidelity, especially after catching him lying about his relationship with an artist named Yoko Ono. John would continually deny he had any sort of contact with her, so you can imagine Cynthia’s shock upon returning home one day to find them lounging in bathrobes together. “I could feel a wall around them that I could not penetrate. In my worst nightmares about Yoko I had not imagined anything like this. Their intimacy had been so powerful I had felt like a stranger in my own house.”
I cover Cynthia's side of the story on my podcast Muses & Stuff. Listen on our site or iTunes!
Cynthia chose to put John first even with all that meant. Within 5 years they would marry, Julian would be born and Beatlemania would become a worldwide phenomenon. While fame and fortune opened many doors it also came with a significant price. Fans of The Beatles were now camping outside their home, the press followed them everywhere they went and the loneliness of having John away most of the year was difficult for Cynthia. Even when they were together, attending swanky events and partying with all the hottest celebrities Cynthia could never shake the feeling that she didn’t belong.
When John discovered psychedelic drugs, Cynthia began to feel an even greater distance growing between them. Cynthia also had increasing suspicions about John’s fidelity, especially after catching him lying about his relationship with an artist named Yoko Ono. John would continually deny he had any sort of contact with her, so you can imagine Cynthia’s shock upon returning home one day to find them lounging in bathrobes together. “I could feel a wall around them that I could not penetrate. In my worst nightmares about Yoko I had not imagined anything like this. Their intimacy had been so powerful I had felt like a stranger in my own house.”
I cover Cynthia's side of the story on my podcast Muses & Stuff. Listen on our site or iTunes!
January 12, 2009
Cynthia is an old-school class act. She hasn’t written an ex-husband bashing tell-all, although she’d be perfectly justified in doing so. With warmth and honesty she revisits her relationship with John Lennon from their pre-Beatle whirlwind romance through their marriage and divorce, until his death in 1980. It was no surprise to me to read about John’s dark side. I’ve been a Beatle fan for many years. John is my favorite Beatle and after years of reading anything about the Beatles I could get my hands on, I long ago became disillusioned with my hero-worshiping of John- he was far from perfect. John was emotionally flawed at the best of times; a cruel, hurtful bastard at his worst.
Cynthia’s book is insightful and even the most ardent Lennon fan will find something new here. This woman must be unusually observational or she kept extensive diaries because the detail found here is amazing, from what outfit she wore on a date with John 50 years ago to snarky remarks from Mimi. It’s absolutely fascinating. Her writing style is of the unpolished sort but the stories she has to tell make up for that fact.
Cynthia put up with a lot being John’s wife and she still does to this day. I don’t know how she did it. Even more shocking is how she has kept her side of the story secret for so long. Her forgiving nature and habit of letting John get away with all that he did is infuriating but you feel such sympathy for her and Julian. Hers is the voice of a dear friend. Even though I already knew the story of her walking in on John and Yoko, to hear it from her voice it was like I just walked in and found Yoko sitting on my floor wearing my bathrobe.
I was one of the few Beatles fans that liked Yoko Ono; after all, John loved her so she couldn’t be that bad, I thought. After reading this my opinion has totally changed.
Cynthia’s book is insightful and even the most ardent Lennon fan will find something new here. This woman must be unusually observational or she kept extensive diaries because the detail found here is amazing, from what outfit she wore on a date with John 50 years ago to snarky remarks from Mimi. It’s absolutely fascinating. Her writing style is of the unpolished sort but the stories she has to tell make up for that fact.
Cynthia put up with a lot being John’s wife and she still does to this day. I don’t know how she did it. Even more shocking is how she has kept her side of the story secret for so long. Her forgiving nature and habit of letting John get away with all that he did is infuriating but you feel such sympathy for her and Julian. Hers is the voice of a dear friend. Even though I already knew the story of her walking in on John and Yoko, to hear it from her voice it was like I just walked in and found Yoko sitting on my floor wearing my bathrobe.
I was one of the few Beatles fans that liked Yoko Ono; after all, John loved her so she couldn’t be that bad, I thought. After reading this my opinion has totally changed.
January 26, 2012
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As a huge fan of the Beatles, it took me longer than it should have to read this book. It is an amazingly powerful story by someone who is so often forgotten or dismissed in the life of John Lennon.
In this book Cynthia tells the story of her life with John, but also delves in to her childhood and his, offering some valuable insights into crucial people in his life. The book starts with the day John died, before recounting how they met and their early life together in Liverpool before the enormous fame the boys encountered from 1963 onwards. Cynthia also tells Julian's story and reveals many lovely anecdotes about John and their relationship.
This book was incredible and I literally could not put it down. Cynthia is an amazingly strong women whom I now admire greatly. She also seems to resist the obvious temptation to just totally bag out Yoko Ono, still feeling sympathy for her in some parts of the book. This is a must read for any Lennon fan, but could also possibly appeal to other music lovers. Really it is the story of a relationship, and a work of fiction could not have produced a more gripping tale than Cynthia's life story. Fantastic!
Edit: I discovered how to put in pictures...
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As a huge fan of the Beatles, it took me longer than it should have to read this book. It is an amazingly powerful story by someone who is so often forgotten or dismissed in the life of John Lennon.
In this book Cynthia tells the story of her life with John, but also delves in to her childhood and his, offering some valuable insights into crucial people in his life. The book starts with the day John died, before recounting how they met and their early life together in Liverpool before the enormous fame the boys encountered from 1963 onwards. Cynthia also tells Julian's story and reveals many lovely anecdotes about John and their relationship.
This book was incredible and I literally could not put it down. Cynthia is an amazingly strong women whom I now admire greatly. She also seems to resist the obvious temptation to just totally bag out Yoko Ono, still feeling sympathy for her in some parts of the book. This is a must read for any Lennon fan, but could also possibly appeal to other music lovers. Really it is the story of a relationship, and a work of fiction could not have produced a more gripping tale than Cynthia's life story. Fantastic!
Edit: I discovered how to put in pictures...
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April 28, 2024
BRB gonna go follow Julian Lennon on Instagram. Full RTC.
While I've always loved The Beatles music, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a superfan, which is why I commend Cynthia Powell Lennon for even writing this book. Because one thing that I've always known is that since John Lennon's tragic death, he's been turned into a kind of deity and his fans are incredibly passionate (some would say fanatical) about him. When a public figure dies, especially when they die young, people tend to magic erase all of their flaws. A similar thing has happened with Princess Diana but that's a rant for another day. It's ok to love Lennon's music and appreciate his contributions without turning an incredibly talented yet flawed man into a saint. Cynthia could've easily turned this into some kind of burn book, but she writes about John with so much love and warmth. However, you still sense the pain underneath the surface.
"He was an extraordinary man: talented, flawed, a creative genius who sang movingly about love while often wounding those closest to him."
The first chapter of the book is Cynthia and Julian Lennon finding out about John's death. Then she takes the reader back to when she first met John, their courtship, breakups and makeups, her unexpected pregnancy, marriage, the birth of their son Julian and their eventual divorce. A lot of people treat Cynthia as if she's just a footnote in John's story, but she actually predates The Beatles! She was there when John met Paul and George and they were The Quarrymen. She was there when they eventually changed their name to The Beatles and Ringo became their drummer. John wrote many of The Beatles love songs about Cynthia. Put some respect on her name!
Cynthia would've been an incredible psychologist because she does a great job of providing context for a lot of John's shitty behavior (especially the way he treated her and Julian after their divorce). He's the epitome of hurt people hurt people. John was abandoned by his father, his mother died when he was a teenager, and he was raised primarily by his Aunt Mimi who was a real PIECE OF WORK. Not only was she controlling, but she was also very critical of anything John did and he spent his entire life trying to earn her approval. The result of growing up in this environment was that while he could be extremely loving towards Cynthia, he could also be very critical and cruel. It also makes sense as to why John would feel drawn to Yoko Ono. She was basically another version of his Aunt Mimi and he just wanted someone to make all of his decisions for him.
What truly broke my heart was John's treatment of Julian. John's father abandoned him when he was 5 and John turns around and does the same thing to Julian. While Julian would visit John sporadically through the years, they never really had a real relationship. At one point, Julian didn't see or hear from his dad for 3 YEARS, until they reconnected during John and Yoko's 18-month separation (SHOUT OUT TO MAY PANG FOR ENCOURAGING JULIAN'S VISITS, YOU'RE THE REAL MVP). Fortunately, the months before his death John was beginning to make more of an effort to reach out to him and build that father son connection. It's bittersweet because had John lived, they probably would've had a really great relationship:
"Not long before he died John gave an interview to Newsweek in which he said: ‘I hadn’t seen my first son grow up and now there’s a 17-year-old man on the phone talking about motorbikes. I was not there for his childhood at all. I was on tour. I don’t know how the game works, but there’s a price to pay for inattention to children. And if I don’t give him attention from zero to five then I’m damn well gonna have to give it to him from 16 to 20, because it’s owed, it’s like the law of the universe.’ "
I know people have STRONG feelings about Yoko Ono. Some people love her because John loved her and because she's always talking about peace. Some people straight up despise her. I do think she was used as a scapegoat for The Beatles breakup and that some of the vitriol aimed at her was because she's a WOC. I also don't think that she put John under some kind of spell to abandon his wife and child. John was a big boy who made his own choices. Yoko seemed like an inherently cold person who had difficulty connecting with people, but she wasn't a monster. I honestly think they were two incredibly broken people who latched on to each other. They were in desperate need of therapy and it's a shame that they hurt so many people in order to be together.
Even Cynthia doesn't completely blame Yoko for the breakdown of their marriage. She points to John's reliance on LSD as the first big schism between them. But personally, I think had John lived, he and Yoko would've divorced. A relationship with that much toxicity, possessiveness (not to mention codependency) and jealousy on both sides was not sustainable. Anyway, good on Cynthia for not dragging both Yoko and John buy their hair when she caught Yoko wearing HER robe in HER house with HER husband. She's better than me because I would've given the guests on Jerry Springer a run for their money 🥰
Some things that stuck out to me:
John and Yoko tried to ABDUCT Yoko's daughter Kyoko!?!
John and Yoko got into a car crash in Scotland with Julian and Kyoko in the car. Cynthia had no idea her child was in Scotland!
Cynthia married 3 more times after John (Good for her) and her second husband Roberto became a consistent father figure to Julian. Even after their divorce, he kept in touch and Julian dedicated one of his albums to him.
Aunt Mimi on her deathbed saying, "I've been a wicked woman" and everyone being like "well.....yeah."
Paul being the one Beatle who kept in touch with Cynthia and Julian after the divorce because he was the only one not afraid of John's temper.
John assumed that Paul wrote "Hey Jude" about him, not about John's young son who was dealing with his parents' divorce.
John once went off on Julian when he was a teen when he giggled loudly. Cynthia said that well into Julian's adulthood, he was still uncomfortable laughing. That completely broke my heart.
I didn't know that Julian had his own successful music career, and he was even nominated for a Grammy!
Yoko plagiarizing Julian's words that he used to comfort his brother Sean after their dad's death and using it in her statement. Also leaving out Julian in that same statement.......
Cynthia and May Pang became good friends after John's death.
Overall, this was a great read. Cynthia seemed like a great person with a quiet strength, and she doesn't try to make herself come off as perfect. That's how I know she was genuine. She acknowledged that her and John weren't the best communicators, and she could've stuck up for herself a bit more. But I understand why she wanted to be that safe, calm place for him to land. I'm so glad she found real love again before she died. I hope she's resting peacefully, and I know she's proud of the man that Julian has become. Now excuse me while I watch all of Cynthia and Julian's interviews on YouTube.
I would also recommend looking up Julian's performance with Chuck Berry. It's fantastic.
CW: physical abuse, emotional abuse, drug use, parental abandonment.
While I've always loved The Beatles music, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a superfan, which is why I commend Cynthia Powell Lennon for even writing this book. Because one thing that I've always known is that since John Lennon's tragic death, he's been turned into a kind of deity and his fans are incredibly passionate (some would say fanatical) about him. When a public figure dies, especially when they die young, people tend to magic erase all of their flaws. A similar thing has happened with Princess Diana but that's a rant for another day. It's ok to love Lennon's music and appreciate his contributions without turning an incredibly talented yet flawed man into a saint. Cynthia could've easily turned this into some kind of burn book, but she writes about John with so much love and warmth. However, you still sense the pain underneath the surface.
"He was an extraordinary man: talented, flawed, a creative genius who sang movingly about love while often wounding those closest to him."
The first chapter of the book is Cynthia and Julian Lennon finding out about John's death. Then she takes the reader back to when she first met John, their courtship, breakups and makeups, her unexpected pregnancy, marriage, the birth of their son Julian and their eventual divorce. A lot of people treat Cynthia as if she's just a footnote in John's story, but she actually predates The Beatles! She was there when John met Paul and George and they were The Quarrymen. She was there when they eventually changed their name to The Beatles and Ringo became their drummer. John wrote many of The Beatles love songs about Cynthia. Put some respect on her name!
Cynthia would've been an incredible psychologist because she does a great job of providing context for a lot of John's shitty behavior (especially the way he treated her and Julian after their divorce). He's the epitome of hurt people hurt people. John was abandoned by his father, his mother died when he was a teenager, and he was raised primarily by his Aunt Mimi who was a real PIECE OF WORK. Not only was she controlling, but she was also very critical of anything John did and he spent his entire life trying to earn her approval. The result of growing up in this environment was that while he could be extremely loving towards Cynthia, he could also be very critical and cruel. It also makes sense as to why John would feel drawn to Yoko Ono. She was basically another version of his Aunt Mimi and he just wanted someone to make all of his decisions for him.
What truly broke my heart was John's treatment of Julian. John's father abandoned him when he was 5 and John turns around and does the same thing to Julian. While Julian would visit John sporadically through the years, they never really had a real relationship. At one point, Julian didn't see or hear from his dad for 3 YEARS, until they reconnected during John and Yoko's 18-month separation (SHOUT OUT TO MAY PANG FOR ENCOURAGING JULIAN'S VISITS, YOU'RE THE REAL MVP). Fortunately, the months before his death John was beginning to make more of an effort to reach out to him and build that father son connection. It's bittersweet because had John lived, they probably would've had a really great relationship:
"Not long before he died John gave an interview to Newsweek in which he said: ‘I hadn’t seen my first son grow up and now there’s a 17-year-old man on the phone talking about motorbikes. I was not there for his childhood at all. I was on tour. I don’t know how the game works, but there’s a price to pay for inattention to children. And if I don’t give him attention from zero to five then I’m damn well gonna have to give it to him from 16 to 20, because it’s owed, it’s like the law of the universe.’ "
I know people have STRONG feelings about Yoko Ono. Some people love her because John loved her and because she's always talking about peace. Some people straight up despise her. I do think she was used as a scapegoat for The Beatles breakup and that some of the vitriol aimed at her was because she's a WOC. I also don't think that she put John under some kind of spell to abandon his wife and child. John was a big boy who made his own choices. Yoko seemed like an inherently cold person who had difficulty connecting with people, but she wasn't a monster. I honestly think they were two incredibly broken people who latched on to each other. They were in desperate need of therapy and it's a shame that they hurt so many people in order to be together.
Even Cynthia doesn't completely blame Yoko for the breakdown of their marriage. She points to John's reliance on LSD as the first big schism between them. But personally, I think had John lived, he and Yoko would've divorced. A relationship with that much toxicity, possessiveness (not to mention codependency) and jealousy on both sides was not sustainable. Anyway, good on Cynthia for not dragging both Yoko and John buy their hair when she caught Yoko wearing HER robe in HER house with HER husband. She's better than me because I would've given the guests on Jerry Springer a run for their money 🥰
Some things that stuck out to me:
John and Yoko tried to ABDUCT Yoko's daughter Kyoko!?!
John and Yoko got into a car crash in Scotland with Julian and Kyoko in the car. Cynthia had no idea her child was in Scotland!
Cynthia married 3 more times after John (Good for her) and her second husband Roberto became a consistent father figure to Julian. Even after their divorce, he kept in touch and Julian dedicated one of his albums to him.
Aunt Mimi on her deathbed saying, "I've been a wicked woman" and everyone being like "well.....yeah."
Paul being the one Beatle who kept in touch with Cynthia and Julian after the divorce because he was the only one not afraid of John's temper.
John assumed that Paul wrote "Hey Jude" about him, not about John's young son who was dealing with his parents' divorce.
John once went off on Julian when he was a teen when he giggled loudly. Cynthia said that well into Julian's adulthood, he was still uncomfortable laughing. That completely broke my heart.
I didn't know that Julian had his own successful music career, and he was even nominated for a Grammy!
Yoko plagiarizing Julian's words that he used to comfort his brother Sean after their dad's death and using it in her statement. Also leaving out Julian in that same statement.......
Cynthia and May Pang became good friends after John's death.
Overall, this was a great read. Cynthia seemed like a great person with a quiet strength, and she doesn't try to make herself come off as perfect. That's how I know she was genuine. She acknowledged that her and John weren't the best communicators, and she could've stuck up for herself a bit more. But I understand why she wanted to be that safe, calm place for him to land. I'm so glad she found real love again before she died. I hope she's resting peacefully, and I know she's proud of the man that Julian has become. Now excuse me while I watch all of Cynthia and Julian's interviews on YouTube.
I would also recommend looking up Julian's performance with Chuck Berry. It's fantastic.
CW: physical abuse, emotional abuse, drug use, parental abandonment.
April 29, 2012
This is one of my favorite books. The heartbreaking story of an over-idolized and very flawed man, through the eyes of woman who loved him and was discarded by him. Ever since I was old enough to understand who John Lennon was, more than just a Beatle, I have always identified with Julian and Cynthia. To anybody who elevates John in my presence I always say "how can a man who was all about peace and love discard and abandon this wife and son and leave them with nothing?" There is no doubt that John Lennon was a talented man, whose death was a loss to us all. There is also no doubt that he was a complicated human, with many many defects and insecurities. I love how the book is written and how honest Cynthia is in her narrative. Great book.
August 28, 2008
I am a big Beatles fan and when I was younger I was crazy about John Lennon. So when this book came out recently I had to read it and I did. And, boy, did it change my view on him. It was very interesting all the way through, but I would think twice before I liked someone like him again. I still like some of the stuff he did - songs he wrote and things he said, but this book gives you a really REAL look at the man behind the talent. I feel so sorry for Cynthia Lennon. She says at the end of the book that if someone had told her what her life would be like with John before she met him, she would have turned and run when she first saw him. That pretty much tells you everything.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2008
This is the "other-side-of-the-story" story about John Lennon, but, I guess, it's not your typical factual historical tell-alls that are out there.
This one is written by a woman whom became involved with John Lennon BEFORE he became the legendary John Lennon, before he formed The Beatles, before he entered the music business and before "Beatlemania" and that alone makes it worth reading.
A behind the scene books where you as the reader get a very honest look inside what went on when her husband was becoming one of histories most famous and legendary men and she was left home to raise their son and dealt with all the changes that came with it.
This one is written by a woman whom became involved with John Lennon BEFORE he became the legendary John Lennon, before he formed The Beatles, before he entered the music business and before "Beatlemania" and that alone makes it worth reading.
A behind the scene books where you as the reader get a very honest look inside what went on when her husband was becoming one of histories most famous and legendary men and she was left home to raise their son and dealt with all the changes that came with it.
December 16, 2009
I picked this one up because I wanted to get an insider's perspective on the life of my favorite Beatle. Not a great storyteller, Lennon does shed some light on the breakup of her marriage. After seeing 'Imagine' and other Beatle documentaries, Yoko, tells the story of she and John getting together as some kind of fated fairy tale, full of magic and acid, complete with fireworks and full frontal nude album covers. The reality of the story was that she was way more calculated, deliberate and relentless in wedging her way into the gap she saw. Bob Spitz alludes to it in his biography 'The Beatles' but Cynthia defintely gives the first hand account of what it was like to live it. The truth was that often John Lennon would say one thing and the next minute, day or week, do the complete opposite and if someone tried to call him on it, or wanted an explanation or even a conversation, tough. The parts of the book that covered that area rang true.
She did lose me often, though, throughout the book. Glaring errors, gross misinterpretations and careless editing abound. I don't think she realizes how clueless her writing makes her appear. (Although I admit, the above statement could be my own gross misinterpretation.) My favorite is from page 94, where she says "In the film BACKBEAT I was portrayed as a clingy, dim little girlfriend in a headscarf. Totally wrong, of course. Quite apart from anything else I never wore a headscarf." Right, Cyn, sorry. Two out of three ain't bad, though, eh? Through so much of the book it's almost painful to read how she pretty much stuck her head in the sand for so many incidents in her marriage, then had the nerve to be shocked when her husband wanted a divorce.
I found myself asking "Did she even know who's who in her own story?" many times as well. She credits some of Paul's songs to John and even goes so far as to say they're about or inspired by her. In the pictures section there's a postcard from the McCartney's she says is from Paul. Nice to think that it was, but Cyn, darlin', the thing is signed Linda, Paul & kids and written in an obvious feminine (and non-European) handwriting. If you're reading this book now, google "Paul McCartney handwriting" to see examples. They're nothing like what's on the page here.
There's so many more examples of where she just remembers or interprets things wrong it'd be impossible to list them all, and this review is already longer than any I've written so far and I'm getting sleepy.
If you're looking for historical accuracy, you will not find it in the pages of "John". If you're ok with light, not fantastically written but sometimes insightful stories about the Beatles' founding member, then by all means proceed.
She did lose me often, though, throughout the book. Glaring errors, gross misinterpretations and careless editing abound. I don't think she realizes how clueless her writing makes her appear. (Although I admit, the above statement could be my own gross misinterpretation.) My favorite is from page 94, where she says "In the film BACKBEAT I was portrayed as a clingy, dim little girlfriend in a headscarf. Totally wrong, of course. Quite apart from anything else I never wore a headscarf." Right, Cyn, sorry. Two out of three ain't bad, though, eh? Through so much of the book it's almost painful to read how she pretty much stuck her head in the sand for so many incidents in her marriage, then had the nerve to be shocked when her husband wanted a divorce.
I found myself asking "Did she even know who's who in her own story?" many times as well. She credits some of Paul's songs to John and even goes so far as to say they're about or inspired by her. In the pictures section there's a postcard from the McCartney's she says is from Paul. Nice to think that it was, but Cyn, darlin', the thing is signed Linda, Paul & kids and written in an obvious feminine (and non-European) handwriting. If you're reading this book now, google "Paul McCartney handwriting" to see examples. They're nothing like what's on the page here.
There's so many more examples of where she just remembers or interprets things wrong it'd be impossible to list them all, and this review is already longer than any I've written so far and I'm getting sleepy.
If you're looking for historical accuracy, you will not find it in the pages of "John". If you're ok with light, not fantastically written but sometimes insightful stories about the Beatles' founding member, then by all means proceed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2011
I read this book for a high school assignment back in the day. The project was to design an end-of-the-year presentation and booklet on something that interests you. At this time I was obsessed with The Beatles, so I decided to read several books about them and the members, and this is one that I ended up buying to use. I loved it. It really showed John's true colors, not the picture that everyone may have of him. He was an amazing man, no doubt, and a culture icon like no other. The truth is, though, that he basically abandoned his first wife and son Julian after he got with Yoko. Most people don't realize this, and I like this book for simply showing the reality of John's life and not just what we all believe from general media knowledge. I learned a lot about John Lennon from this book, and I commend Cynthia for creating it.
October 2, 2008
As a former Beatlemaniac, I was very curious to read this behind the scenes book since Cynthia knew John Lennon from art school and married him just before the Beatles hit the big time. They were married throughout the Beatles' heydey and she was a part of their incredible success and also the unpleasant time when they broke up. I think she did a great job--she was honest about the hurt of their divorce & John's dalliances plus his emotional neglect of their little son, Julian. But it was very clear that she continued to love John Lennon and was able to recognize his psychological damage from childhood and how it played into his behavior although she certainly didn't excuse it. I think any Beatles fan from the sixties would enjoy this book.
May 3, 2015
On the one hand, it's nice to get the POV of someone who was so close to a Beatle and who gives a first-hand opinion of what it was like to be there when everything was going down. On the other hand, I think Cynthia is kidding herself, and us, about how close John was to her.
She often comes off as quite naive, for instance, when she states that John would never have slept with Brian because he was so heterosexual. While I certainly don't believe John was gay, or even bi, I do believe he and Brian had an incident on their trip to Spain. She also seems oblivious to his growing disinterest in her, blaming his changes on his drug use. I'm more inclined to think he turned to the drug use because of his boredom with his marriage.
I do think that John could have treated his ex-wife and first child much, much better. But I think that shoving all the blame for his actions onto Yoko is wrong and more than a bit racist. Paul himself has stated that Yoko did not break up the Beatles, yet that's precisely the conclusion Cynthia reaches.
There are also some curious omissions in her story. In the past she stated that she slept with Magic Alex on the night after John betrayed her; here she claims that they literally just slept together. Uh-huh. She also omits something she told John in front of May Pang, which is that she always hoped to have more children with him. This kind of throws doubt onto her statement that she had "moved on" from John, and may have made him wary of her.
Of the incidents that Cynthia relates after John's death, all I can say is that Yoko has no opportunity to tell her side. Again, she may be omitting a lot of information. I know for one thing that Julian partied much harder than she lets on here after his first album was a smash, and that may have been a big reason why Yoko was reluctant to grant him more money from the trust John set up. It's a very one-sided story. Another thing that really annoyed me is when she put down Yoko for releasing things that she felt "exploited" John, only to mention not much later how she herself did things like open a restaurant named "Lennons" (which we ate at; it was not good) as "a tribute to John's memory." Yeah. If she does it, it's exploitation, but when you do it, it's a tribute. Sorry.
Still, while there's very little new information, and some of the Beatles material reads as if it's been recycled from the same old books (and some of it is wrong), it's at its best when recounting the early days of their courtship and life in Liverpool, before the group's fame. That's obviously the time when they were happiest together, and that Cynthia wanted to remember. She loved John, and Julian, their son. She did well by him, I think.
Worth a read, and was a nice Kindle gift from a close friend.
She often comes off as quite naive, for instance, when she states that John would never have slept with Brian because he was so heterosexual. While I certainly don't believe John was gay, or even bi, I do believe he and Brian had an incident on their trip to Spain. She also seems oblivious to his growing disinterest in her, blaming his changes on his drug use. I'm more inclined to think he turned to the drug use because of his boredom with his marriage.
I do think that John could have treated his ex-wife and first child much, much better. But I think that shoving all the blame for his actions onto Yoko is wrong and more than a bit racist. Paul himself has stated that Yoko did not break up the Beatles, yet that's precisely the conclusion Cynthia reaches.
There are also some curious omissions in her story. In the past she stated that she slept with Magic Alex on the night after John betrayed her; here she claims that they literally just slept together. Uh-huh. She also omits something she told John in front of May Pang, which is that she always hoped to have more children with him. This kind of throws doubt onto her statement that she had "moved on" from John, and may have made him wary of her.
Of the incidents that Cynthia relates after John's death, all I can say is that Yoko has no opportunity to tell her side. Again, she may be omitting a lot of information. I know for one thing that Julian partied much harder than she lets on here after his first album was a smash, and that may have been a big reason why Yoko was reluctant to grant him more money from the trust John set up. It's a very one-sided story. Another thing that really annoyed me is when she put down Yoko for releasing things that she felt "exploited" John, only to mention not much later how she herself did things like open a restaurant named "Lennons" (which we ate at; it was not good) as "a tribute to John's memory." Yeah. If she does it, it's exploitation, but when you do it, it's a tribute. Sorry.
Still, while there's very little new information, and some of the Beatles material reads as if it's been recycled from the same old books (and some of it is wrong), it's at its best when recounting the early days of their courtship and life in Liverpool, before the group's fame. That's obviously the time when they were happiest together, and that Cynthia wanted to remember. She loved John, and Julian, their son. She did well by him, I think.
Worth a read, and was a nice Kindle gift from a close friend.
November 1, 2011
Let’s get the sad, disgusting part out of the way first. John Lennon was, like so many who went before him and those who will surely follow, simply a hypocrite. The 20th century’s secular deity whose mantra was “All you need is Love” abandoned his own son, Julian - his six year old son. Scoot down Jim Baker, and make room for one more. Now that the ugliness is out of the way, let’s move on.
John, Cynthia Lennon’s account of her relationship and marriage to John Lennon, was a quick and easy read. The forward is by Julian which seems to lend it some credibility straight away. Also the fact that it was written 25 years after John’s death, allowing much of the hype to melt away, adds strength to the idea that Cynthia simply wants her side of the story to be heard. I would imagine that had money been the primary motive, putting her story in print in the early 1980’s would have been much more lucrative.
I’ve read a great number of books about the Beatles or its individual members over the years, and despite her seat in the eye of the storm, I don’t think Cynthia adds anything truly new to the record. However, I think her voice offers flesh and blood and feeling to those who, like herself, woke up one morning to find their seat next to John had taken center stage in the eye of the hurricane that was Beatle mania. Even John’s aunt Mimi, often a very unlikeable woman, gains some sympathy in the crushing fame that followed in the wake of the lads from Liverpool. Of course the most tragic figure in the tale is John and Cynthia’s son, Julian.
Only six when his parents divorced, and still very young when his father was murdered, the tragedy is compounded by the fact that not only did a boy lose his father, John turned into the man he hated above all others, his own father. John’s slow but unstoppable drifting into his own father’s footsteps is at times harder to grasp than Julian’s pain at the repeated loss of his father.
Cynthia does a few things in the book that I really like. The vast majority of the book deals with the good times she and John shared, and the love they had for one another. She makes this quite real. While there is nothing flattering about Yoko in Cynthia’s account, she does not make Yoko the devil. At times she makes John’s relationship with Yoko seem almost like a byproduct of his drug use rather than love. While that may be too dismissive of the love John and Yoko clearly felt, Cynthia lays the responsibility for this tragedy squarely at the feet of its author – John.
Life rarely gives us “happy ever after”, and I take comfort that Cynthia allows us “at least we ended up OK”. In my mind this in line with another spiritual maxim sung about by the fab four “and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make”.
John, Cynthia Lennon’s account of her relationship and marriage to John Lennon, was a quick and easy read. The forward is by Julian which seems to lend it some credibility straight away. Also the fact that it was written 25 years after John’s death, allowing much of the hype to melt away, adds strength to the idea that Cynthia simply wants her side of the story to be heard. I would imagine that had money been the primary motive, putting her story in print in the early 1980’s would have been much more lucrative.
I’ve read a great number of books about the Beatles or its individual members over the years, and despite her seat in the eye of the storm, I don’t think Cynthia adds anything truly new to the record. However, I think her voice offers flesh and blood and feeling to those who, like herself, woke up one morning to find their seat next to John had taken center stage in the eye of the hurricane that was Beatle mania. Even John’s aunt Mimi, often a very unlikeable woman, gains some sympathy in the crushing fame that followed in the wake of the lads from Liverpool. Of course the most tragic figure in the tale is John and Cynthia’s son, Julian.
Only six when his parents divorced, and still very young when his father was murdered, the tragedy is compounded by the fact that not only did a boy lose his father, John turned into the man he hated above all others, his own father. John’s slow but unstoppable drifting into his own father’s footsteps is at times harder to grasp than Julian’s pain at the repeated loss of his father.
Cynthia does a few things in the book that I really like. The vast majority of the book deals with the good times she and John shared, and the love they had for one another. She makes this quite real. While there is nothing flattering about Yoko in Cynthia’s account, she does not make Yoko the devil. At times she makes John’s relationship with Yoko seem almost like a byproduct of his drug use rather than love. While that may be too dismissive of the love John and Yoko clearly felt, Cynthia lays the responsibility for this tragedy squarely at the feet of its author – John.
Life rarely gives us “happy ever after”, and I take comfort that Cynthia allows us “at least we ended up OK”. In my mind this in line with another spiritual maxim sung about by the fab four “and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make”.
January 5, 2008
I have always been a huge beatles fan and John has always been my favorite Beatle! I have always looked up to him and even after I read this book I still do. I have learned that John Lennon is a very complex man with a few "hidden" secrets! He has made plenty of mistakes and some he wouldn't come to grips with. There were times he was in the wrong, did bad things, and hurt those around him. In the end I beleive he was a man with a dream and somewhere in that dream he got lost, stuck, and confused. Along with the hype of fame, adoring fans, and drugs.
I was extremely excited to know that Cynthia had written a book! I didn't mind Yoko but I was always curious about the 1st wife! The book was amazing after I read it! Cynthia put her heart and soul into this book and it really shows! I know that she never stopped caring for John and I don't think John truely ever stopped caring about her. I beleive now that Yoko Ono is a wicked woman who never truely cared for John possibly just his fame and money. I would like to beleive that if John hadn't have died so suddenly he would have patched his relationship up with the beatles and would have gotten away from Yoko which is what I beleive he was possibly doing before he died. I was happy to hear Cynthia's side which is what I have been waiting for for years and I beleive everything she says. In my eyes why would she lie? She had been there from the start, she was considerd a "Beatles Wife", "John's Girlfriend, later wife and mother of his child Jullian", and a woman I beleive truely loved this man and only wanted what he wanted!
I was extremely excited to know that Cynthia had written a book! I didn't mind Yoko but I was always curious about the 1st wife! The book was amazing after I read it! Cynthia put her heart and soul into this book and it really shows! I know that she never stopped caring for John and I don't think John truely ever stopped caring about her. I beleive now that Yoko Ono is a wicked woman who never truely cared for John possibly just his fame and money. I would like to beleive that if John hadn't have died so suddenly he would have patched his relationship up with the beatles and would have gotten away from Yoko which is what I beleive he was possibly doing before he died. I was happy to hear Cynthia's side which is what I have been waiting for for years and I beleive everything she says. In my eyes why would she lie? She had been there from the start, she was considerd a "Beatles Wife", "John's Girlfriend, later wife and mother of his child Jullian", and a woman I beleive truely loved this man and only wanted what he wanted!
April 12, 2009
Cynthia Lennon offers a very interesting, different, and probably very true perspective of John Lennon. She tells his story while also telling her story and the story of their son, Julian.
The book contains many tidbits of John and the other Beatles. Cynthia tells of John's brilliance without glossing over the demons that he battled - demons that hurt many, but most specifically hurt Cynthia and Julian. Strangely, though, it sounds like Cynthia and Julian could have gotten past the hurt that John left them had they been taken care of monetarily, which Yoko ensured would not happen.
I finished this book with a heart wounded for all that John lost and for all the pain that Cynthia and Julian continue to carry.
The book contains many tidbits of John and the other Beatles. Cynthia tells of John's brilliance without glossing over the demons that he battled - demons that hurt many, but most specifically hurt Cynthia and Julian. Strangely, though, it sounds like Cynthia and Julian could have gotten past the hurt that John left them had they been taken care of monetarily, which Yoko ensured would not happen.
I finished this book with a heart wounded for all that John lost and for all the pain that Cynthia and Julian continue to carry.
January 14, 2022
I always refused to read any biography about John because I live him. I love him via his music, his writings. I had never the smallest doubt about his character, as any human he wasn't perfect. I knew his music at ten and since his always with me.
I have decided to read this book because it is written by Cynthia, who in my in mu opinion really loved him. She brought me in their wonderful years and also inside her sufferings and I have suffered with her in reading it. This is a book to read specially if you love John Lennon! And I still love him!
I have decided to read this book because it is written by Cynthia, who in my in mu opinion really loved him. She brought me in their wonderful years and also inside her sufferings and I have suffered with her in reading it. This is a book to read specially if you love John Lennon! And I still love him!
November 22, 2009
An obviously still bitter ex-wife talks about her early years with John.
It seems while John and Yoko were touring the world and wallowing in riches, his ex-wife and son were often broke. Cynthia sure must have received some pretty bad legal advice and settled for a pittance in the divorce settlement or, she is not telling the whole story.
There is not a whole lot of depth in this story but at least it is refreshingly brief.
It seems while John and Yoko were touring the world and wallowing in riches, his ex-wife and son were often broke. Cynthia sure must have received some pretty bad legal advice and settled for a pittance in the divorce settlement or, she is not telling the whole story.
There is not a whole lot of depth in this story but at least it is refreshingly brief.
May 2, 2011
This review is available on my site at
http://booksthatrockus.blogspot.com/2...
Not long before John Lennon's death, his first wife Cynthia published a memoir of their marriage called A Twist of Lennon, now out of print. The title provides more than one play on words - Cynthia had been married to her third husband John Twist at the time - and late in her most recent work John she admits that the first memoir wasn't wholly her idea. Strapped for cash, and pressured by Twist, she penned the tell-all much to John and Yoko's consternation. This might explain why Cynthia decided to re-tell her story rather than heavily revise Twist and resurrect that work in a time when many authors' back lists are enjoying new life in the Kindle age.
I also gathered toward the end of John that money is not a motive for this work, but rather a desire to contribute to the Lennon legend - that its publication nearly coincided with a Lennon milestone (the 25th anniversary of his death) shouldn't be lost on anybody, either. Yet, though she and John divorced, her perspective is certainly no less important than that of any other woman involved with the band.
As I look over comments on Lennon where his personal life was concerned, I definitely see split camps of opinion on Yoko Ono. You love her or you despise her - middle ground simply doesn't exist there. Regarding Cynthia, I had expected to find more sympathy than indifference towards her among Beatles fans, yet it surprised me to find Cynthia is not without her detractors. Some reviews on the book's Amazon.com page accuse the first Mrs. Lennon of repeating motives with her previous book - a money grab and an opportunity to complain. Having finished Patti Boyd's memoir (reviewed here) I thought it worthwhile to see Beatle history from another woman's angle.
Reading John, you essentially get as much of that as you did from Wonderful Tonight, which isn't what most fans would call definitive. John opens at the moment news breaks of Lennon's death. Cynthia, already stressed from yet another failing marriage and the pressures of running a business, is naturally devastated. Despite their distance and rare instances of communication, her love for this difficult man remains, as well as the link shared in their son. It's from this tragic moment that Cynthia segues into her earlier life with Lennon, which encouraged me as a reader because I had hoped not to turn a page to find the same Beatles story I've read in so many books. Yet when the story veered off tangent to Cynthia's pre-John years I felt disappointed. Bear in mind, it isn't because I'm not interested in Mrs. Lennon's early life, but as the book is named John I wanted the author not to lose focus.
We are introduced to early supporting players in the Beatles story, yet few receive as much page time as John's Aunt Mimi, with whom Cynthia had a tense, if not borderline civil, relationship. The picture painted here of John's foster parent reveals a bitter woman unmoved by any of Lennon's triumphs and perhaps jealous of Cynthia's presence - Kristin Scott-Thomas's portrayal of Mimi in Nowhere Boy seems much softer by comparison.
The early years are marked by Cynthia's memories of unjustified scorn and resentment - fans hated her because she had what they wanted, John was likely unfaithful in Hamburg, and Brian Epstein didn't want the world to know she existed. Mrs. Lennon does point out, however, that she never perceived Lennon felt trapped into marriage by her pregnancy. They never used protection, she writes, it wasn't something you did. As implied by her writings, a woman standing up for herself when she feels wronged is also on that list.
We are led through the early sixties with Cynthia in a state of stoic acceptance, not really showing strong emotion in the book until Yoko appears. By this time, however, it seems too late to take a stand, and the remainder of the novel plays out in a tortured denouement, with Cynthia now reporting from the sidelines as she recalls her post-John life in a series of strained communications with her ex, bad relationship choices, and frustration over John's neglect of his oldest son. In writing about Julian's visits to the Dakota in John's lifetime, there are attempts to dispel the myth of Lennon's bread-baking househusband image. To be fair, harsher biographers of Lennon have noted discrepancies as well.
What I find most interesting about this book is that while John's friend "Magic" Alex Madras is mentioned, Cynthia downplays her involvement with him. Other books on the Beatles have claimed Cynthia and Alex had a fling after the Lennons' breakup, yet John denies the notion - Cynthia charges Alex sought to seduce her to give John ammunition during divorce proceedings, and she didn't play along. She doesn't outright say there was no sexual relationship, but it is curious to read in light of how this period is captured in other books.
I wanted to like John, and I had expected to see an ugly side of the former Beatle people want to remember for his music and peace activism. No man is without sin, and even the most revered of heroes carry the burden of being human. What I take away most from Cynthia's book is her insistence that John did love her, and a shocking final line that turns the entire book into a tale of regret. Mrs. Lennon's claim that John's method of dealing with difficult situations by simply cutting off contact with people and moving forward is a common theme throughout the book, and her concluding remarks imply she can't quite do the same.
I suppose, as fans, neither can we.
http://booksthatrockus.blogspot.com/2...
Not long before John Lennon's death, his first wife Cynthia published a memoir of their marriage called A Twist of Lennon, now out of print. The title provides more than one play on words - Cynthia had been married to her third husband John Twist at the time - and late in her most recent work John she admits that the first memoir wasn't wholly her idea. Strapped for cash, and pressured by Twist, she penned the tell-all much to John and Yoko's consternation. This might explain why Cynthia decided to re-tell her story rather than heavily revise Twist and resurrect that work in a time when many authors' back lists are enjoying new life in the Kindle age.
I also gathered toward the end of John that money is not a motive for this work, but rather a desire to contribute to the Lennon legend - that its publication nearly coincided with a Lennon milestone (the 25th anniversary of his death) shouldn't be lost on anybody, either. Yet, though she and John divorced, her perspective is certainly no less important than that of any other woman involved with the band.
As I look over comments on Lennon where his personal life was concerned, I definitely see split camps of opinion on Yoko Ono. You love her or you despise her - middle ground simply doesn't exist there. Regarding Cynthia, I had expected to find more sympathy than indifference towards her among Beatles fans, yet it surprised me to find Cynthia is not without her detractors. Some reviews on the book's Amazon.com page accuse the first Mrs. Lennon of repeating motives with her previous book - a money grab and an opportunity to complain. Having finished Patti Boyd's memoir (reviewed here) I thought it worthwhile to see Beatle history from another woman's angle.
Reading John, you essentially get as much of that as you did from Wonderful Tonight, which isn't what most fans would call definitive. John opens at the moment news breaks of Lennon's death. Cynthia, already stressed from yet another failing marriage and the pressures of running a business, is naturally devastated. Despite their distance and rare instances of communication, her love for this difficult man remains, as well as the link shared in their son. It's from this tragic moment that Cynthia segues into her earlier life with Lennon, which encouraged me as a reader because I had hoped not to turn a page to find the same Beatles story I've read in so many books. Yet when the story veered off tangent to Cynthia's pre-John years I felt disappointed. Bear in mind, it isn't because I'm not interested in Mrs. Lennon's early life, but as the book is named John I wanted the author not to lose focus.
We are introduced to early supporting players in the Beatles story, yet few receive as much page time as John's Aunt Mimi, with whom Cynthia had a tense, if not borderline civil, relationship. The picture painted here of John's foster parent reveals a bitter woman unmoved by any of Lennon's triumphs and perhaps jealous of Cynthia's presence - Kristin Scott-Thomas's portrayal of Mimi in Nowhere Boy seems much softer by comparison.
The early years are marked by Cynthia's memories of unjustified scorn and resentment - fans hated her because she had what they wanted, John was likely unfaithful in Hamburg, and Brian Epstein didn't want the world to know she existed. Mrs. Lennon does point out, however, that she never perceived Lennon felt trapped into marriage by her pregnancy. They never used protection, she writes, it wasn't something you did. As implied by her writings, a woman standing up for herself when she feels wronged is also on that list.
We are led through the early sixties with Cynthia in a state of stoic acceptance, not really showing strong emotion in the book until Yoko appears. By this time, however, it seems too late to take a stand, and the remainder of the novel plays out in a tortured denouement, with Cynthia now reporting from the sidelines as she recalls her post-John life in a series of strained communications with her ex, bad relationship choices, and frustration over John's neglect of his oldest son. In writing about Julian's visits to the Dakota in John's lifetime, there are attempts to dispel the myth of Lennon's bread-baking househusband image. To be fair, harsher biographers of Lennon have noted discrepancies as well.
What I find most interesting about this book is that while John's friend "Magic" Alex Madras is mentioned, Cynthia downplays her involvement with him. Other books on the Beatles have claimed Cynthia and Alex had a fling after the Lennons' breakup, yet John denies the notion - Cynthia charges Alex sought to seduce her to give John ammunition during divorce proceedings, and she didn't play along. She doesn't outright say there was no sexual relationship, but it is curious to read in light of how this period is captured in other books.
I wanted to like John, and I had expected to see an ugly side of the former Beatle people want to remember for his music and peace activism. No man is without sin, and even the most revered of heroes carry the burden of being human. What I take away most from Cynthia's book is her insistence that John did love her, and a shocking final line that turns the entire book into a tale of regret. Mrs. Lennon's claim that John's method of dealing with difficult situations by simply cutting off contact with people and moving forward is a common theme throughout the book, and her concluding remarks imply she can't quite do the same.
I suppose, as fans, neither can we.
January 18, 2014
I'd put off reading this one for a while, but I'm not sure why. I've read enough books about John and the Beatles to know that he could be a not-very-nice person, to put it mildly. But I finally bought a copy and it was an interesting companion to the other books I've read. Some of the facts are a bit off, probably due to it being her recollection of them, and I suspect that she did sugar coat a few things, even as honest as she tried to be. But all in all, it was a well-done book, and pretty respectful of John in general, even when describing him at his worst. Which was pretty bad. Especially in regards to his treatment of Julian. As a whole, the book is pretty sad as we watch John battle with his own issues of abandonment as a teen and then go on to create the same issues in his son.
The person who comes off worst is easily Yoko - and this book jives with things I've read about her from other sources. The whole thing is just sad, especially in light of the fact that there was really no closure for Julian or Cynthia with John, just lots of questions. Oh and a withheld and stingy inheritance, courtesy of Yoko.
The book is a quick read and doesn't bog you down like some of the other bios do, I read it pretty much all in one day.
The person who comes off worst is easily Yoko - and this book jives with things I've read about her from other sources. The whole thing is just sad, especially in light of the fact that there was really no closure for Julian or Cynthia with John, just lots of questions. Oh and a withheld and stingy inheritance, courtesy of Yoko.
The book is a quick read and doesn't bog you down like some of the other bios do, I read it pretty much all in one day.
May 19, 2022
I ate up Pattie Boyd's memoir and I absolutely devoured Cyn's, which took me a mere two days to read. My biggest takeaway is that John Lennon was a profoundly unwell man who ran from conflict and responsibility, lashed out cruelly without a thought for others' feelings or perspectives, and allowed himself to be completely taken over by one Yoko Ono.
Cynthia's description of their early courtship was fairly sweet, but was tinged with sadness of knowing what comes next. They had an unlikely bond, he was the bad boy rebel, she was the goody two shoes art student. Cyn served as a source of stability for John during the band's struggling years and during the wildness of Beatlemania. She was totally uninterested in the limelight and seemed perfectly fine to be hidden at the behest of Brian Epstein. She was...I hate to say it...a bit of a doormat. When John proposes marriage after learning of her pregnancy, she thinks to herself: "I was grateful, relieved, and happy. I'd have understood if he had walked away, although it would have hurt." When Yoko bars her from coming to John's vigil and tells her it's because "It's not as if you're my school friend," Cyn thinks to herself: "It was blunt, but I accepted it: there is no place for an ex-wife at a public grieving." When she starts losing blood in the middle of her pregnancy, she decides not to phone John "because I didn't want to worry him," while he was on tour, as, "I didn't want him to feel pulled in two directions." And countless other selfless and self-erasing acts of devotion.
Much like Pattie's book, this one was eye-opening for what women and wives were expected to do. Cyn played the part of a devoted wife perfectly. She was mousy and quiet and almost never asserted herself. Even in the happier days of their marriage, John makes all the decisions (which are all pretty impulsive.) She rarely draws or paints for herself and does not seek very much fulfillment outside the home. The one time she did do some painting in their living room, she found that John had painted over it "Milk is good for you," in either a rage that she should have something of her own or more likely, a drugged out haze. Devastating.
Cyn simply could not keep up with Beatlemania. There were two--count em, two--incidents of a train fully leaving the station without her on it during a tour! John just responded with something like, well don't be so damn slow. That is such an apt metaphor for their life together. They were just not on the same plane at all. Not even in the same universe by the end of the 60s. Tours kept them physically apart, and drugs pulled them even further. At one point, John confesses he has been unfaithful and Cyn actually says, "That's ok." That's ok! He promises she is the only one he loves and weeks later, leaves her for Yoko. The relationship was so doomed from the beginning, but Cyn was so determined to smooth out their rough spots and get to a point where they were the three of them together as a family. She explained--answering the reader's question why the hell did you stay with him???--that it was not uncommon for wives in Liverpool to have husbands away at sea, or for wives of rockstars to turn a blind eye to infidelities on tour because that's just what men did. Her job as a wife was to cater to John and that was it.
Aunt Mimi was SUCH a piece of work! She never had a kind word for Cynthia and in one particularly shocking episode, she would purposefully let her several cats into Julian's crib even though Cyn hated the cats when she was living with her. Mimi frequently screamed and berated John about music and never showed him the affection that he craved. Cyn posits that Yoko is a bit like Mimi. Both were domineering and blunt, and that that is what John is used to. Not sure if I totally agree with that, but it's certainly an interesting hypothesis.
Now on to Yoko. My GOD Yoko. She is deranged! Here are only a few of her transgressions:
-Explained to Cyn that she and John had decided Yoko would handle all matters relating to Julian and John would deal with Tony and Kyoko, effectively cutting Julian off from his father for three years.
-After the car crash in Scotland, she passes Cyn a note through their assistant that "Julian was very badly behaved."
-Suggested to Julian in all honesty that he might want to see the spot that John was killed mere hours after the fact
-Refused Julian the guitar he had seen his father play in person and instead gave him two other guitars with no memories attached
-took Julian’s words to Sean and pretended they were her own in the press release after John died. She also attributed this ridiculously erudite speech about John and god to Sean (a five year old) in the same press release.
-Acted as executor of Julian's trust with an iron fist
-Walked around naked with John when Julian first visited them as a nervous 8-year-old.
Cynthia is SO generous to Yoko. She posits that Yoko treated Julian so abysmally because she was estranged from her own daughter and found it painful to be around John's son. Very possible from an armchair psychologist perspective, but not exactly any excuse for being a total witch.
Cyn seems to think the demise of their marriage and John's bizarre behavior was all Yoko's influence. But John was no peach in his own right. John really was a very cowardly person who ran from conflict. Which is strange because he also had a biting, cruel wit that he would unleash, and would go into fits of rage over the littlest things when Julian visited him. He also was so unbelievably cruel to Cyn. For no reason! He didn't have to orchestrate this big reveal to Cyn that he had been having an affair with Yoko. He didn't have to pay Magic Alex to tail her and get flimsy evidence that she was the one having an affair. Unnecessarily cruel. This is what I mean when I say he was an unwell person. Very unstable, not quite the same fun-loving John of the early years of the Beatles, so self-serious with all of his dumb stunts with Yoko. Easily duped, easily influenced, easily strong-armed (actually not just by Yoko either, by Magic Alex, the Maharishi, Allen Klein...I guess he likes conmen.) There really were such deep wounds, astounding impulsivity mixed with self-hatred, and terrible choices. The letter he wrote describing his love for Julian while on tour in 1965 was so telling. After detailing his regrets, he says, "I'll go now because I'm bringing myself down thinking what a thoughtless bastard I seem to be...I really feel like crying--it's stupid and I'm choking up now as I'm writing." Run from the pain of continuing the cycle of your own absent father, channel it into music, but never really confront it then.
Interestingly, Cynthia barely touched on the John-Paul relationship. Obviously, we all know how much they meant to each other, but Paul was pretty absent from the book. She mentions them of course, because Paul’s story is so entwined with theirs, but she really focuses more on their marriage, divorce, and Julian. (That's good, good to get a new perspective on my extensive Beatles reading/research.) This was a tough read. By the end, there were very few positive qualities you came away with. John had changed so, so much from their teenage courtship. The last line was amazing:
"Of course I never regret my wonderful son. But the truth is that if I'd known as a teenager what falling for John Lennon would lead to, I would have turned round right then and walked away." At least May Pang was nice to her!
Cynthia's description of their early courtship was fairly sweet, but was tinged with sadness of knowing what comes next. They had an unlikely bond, he was the bad boy rebel, she was the goody two shoes art student. Cyn served as a source of stability for John during the band's struggling years and during the wildness of Beatlemania. She was totally uninterested in the limelight and seemed perfectly fine to be hidden at the behest of Brian Epstein. She was...I hate to say it...a bit of a doormat. When John proposes marriage after learning of her pregnancy, she thinks to herself: "I was grateful, relieved, and happy. I'd have understood if he had walked away, although it would have hurt." When Yoko bars her from coming to John's vigil and tells her it's because "It's not as if you're my school friend," Cyn thinks to herself: "It was blunt, but I accepted it: there is no place for an ex-wife at a public grieving." When she starts losing blood in the middle of her pregnancy, she decides not to phone John "because I didn't want to worry him," while he was on tour, as, "I didn't want him to feel pulled in two directions." And countless other selfless and self-erasing acts of devotion.
Much like Pattie's book, this one was eye-opening for what women and wives were expected to do. Cyn played the part of a devoted wife perfectly. She was mousy and quiet and almost never asserted herself. Even in the happier days of their marriage, John makes all the decisions (which are all pretty impulsive.) She rarely draws or paints for herself and does not seek very much fulfillment outside the home. The one time she did do some painting in their living room, she found that John had painted over it "Milk is good for you," in either a rage that she should have something of her own or more likely, a drugged out haze. Devastating.
Cyn simply could not keep up with Beatlemania. There were two--count em, two--incidents of a train fully leaving the station without her on it during a tour! John just responded with something like, well don't be so damn slow. That is such an apt metaphor for their life together. They were just not on the same plane at all. Not even in the same universe by the end of the 60s. Tours kept them physically apart, and drugs pulled them even further. At one point, John confesses he has been unfaithful and Cyn actually says, "That's ok." That's ok! He promises she is the only one he loves and weeks later, leaves her for Yoko. The relationship was so doomed from the beginning, but Cyn was so determined to smooth out their rough spots and get to a point where they were the three of them together as a family. She explained--answering the reader's question why the hell did you stay with him???--that it was not uncommon for wives in Liverpool to have husbands away at sea, or for wives of rockstars to turn a blind eye to infidelities on tour because that's just what men did. Her job as a wife was to cater to John and that was it.
Aunt Mimi was SUCH a piece of work! She never had a kind word for Cynthia and in one particularly shocking episode, she would purposefully let her several cats into Julian's crib even though Cyn hated the cats when she was living with her. Mimi frequently screamed and berated John about music and never showed him the affection that he craved. Cyn posits that Yoko is a bit like Mimi. Both were domineering and blunt, and that that is what John is used to. Not sure if I totally agree with that, but it's certainly an interesting hypothesis.
Now on to Yoko. My GOD Yoko. She is deranged! Here are only a few of her transgressions:
-Explained to Cyn that she and John had decided Yoko would handle all matters relating to Julian and John would deal with Tony and Kyoko, effectively cutting Julian off from his father for three years.
-After the car crash in Scotland, she passes Cyn a note through their assistant that "Julian was very badly behaved."
-Suggested to Julian in all honesty that he might want to see the spot that John was killed mere hours after the fact
-Refused Julian the guitar he had seen his father play in person and instead gave him two other guitars with no memories attached
-took Julian’s words to Sean and pretended they were her own in the press release after John died. She also attributed this ridiculously erudite speech about John and god to Sean (a five year old) in the same press release.
-Acted as executor of Julian's trust with an iron fist
-Walked around naked with John when Julian first visited them as a nervous 8-year-old.
Cynthia is SO generous to Yoko. She posits that Yoko treated Julian so abysmally because she was estranged from her own daughter and found it painful to be around John's son. Very possible from an armchair psychologist perspective, but not exactly any excuse for being a total witch.
Cyn seems to think the demise of their marriage and John's bizarre behavior was all Yoko's influence. But John was no peach in his own right. John really was a very cowardly person who ran from conflict. Which is strange because he also had a biting, cruel wit that he would unleash, and would go into fits of rage over the littlest things when Julian visited him. He also was so unbelievably cruel to Cyn. For no reason! He didn't have to orchestrate this big reveal to Cyn that he had been having an affair with Yoko. He didn't have to pay Magic Alex to tail her and get flimsy evidence that she was the one having an affair. Unnecessarily cruel. This is what I mean when I say he was an unwell person. Very unstable, not quite the same fun-loving John of the early years of the Beatles, so self-serious with all of his dumb stunts with Yoko. Easily duped, easily influenced, easily strong-armed (actually not just by Yoko either, by Magic Alex, the Maharishi, Allen Klein...I guess he likes conmen.) There really were such deep wounds, astounding impulsivity mixed with self-hatred, and terrible choices. The letter he wrote describing his love for Julian while on tour in 1965 was so telling. After detailing his regrets, he says, "I'll go now because I'm bringing myself down thinking what a thoughtless bastard I seem to be...I really feel like crying--it's stupid and I'm choking up now as I'm writing." Run from the pain of continuing the cycle of your own absent father, channel it into music, but never really confront it then.
Interestingly, Cynthia barely touched on the John-Paul relationship. Obviously, we all know how much they meant to each other, but Paul was pretty absent from the book. She mentions them of course, because Paul’s story is so entwined with theirs, but she really focuses more on their marriage, divorce, and Julian. (That's good, good to get a new perspective on my extensive Beatles reading/research.) This was a tough read. By the end, there were very few positive qualities you came away with. John had changed so, so much from their teenage courtship. The last line was amazing:
"Of course I never regret my wonderful son. But the truth is that if I'd known as a teenager what falling for John Lennon would lead to, I would have turned round right then and walked away." At least May Pang was nice to her!
February 7, 2013
I loved this book, I'm a huge fan of John Lennon this book totally surprised me. I like Cynthia and really respect her for writing this book, it isn't trashy all it just brought more insight into who John Lennon was and his life with Cynthia and after Cynthia. As well as her life after their divorce, trying to live a normal life with out him trying not to live in his shadow. I read this book about seven years ago and I will still recommend it to anyone that is a fan of John or Cynthia's. Some things surprised me about about John and really shocked me I was mad at first but then I thought about it I was putting John on a pedestal which was wrong he is no different then any human being. Reading this book just made him more real to me more human, he wasn't John Lennon from The Beatles John Lennon the artist/musician and activist he was John Lennon the man, just John. Cynthia did a real good job and was truthfully honest I love the ending to her book, it was honest and real. Cynthia didn't need to hide her feelings, still after seven years I remember it very well. I truly recommend this biography
January 26, 2010
This was an excellent memoir, sensitively written by John’s first wife, Cynthia. The author comes off as a classy individual; she wisely sidesteps the recent trend of trashy “tell-alls.” Instead, we have the quiet account of a remarkable experience that had its share of good and bad.
Perhaps what drew me in most was the fact that I could so easily relate to Cynthia. In many of the scenes she describes, especially the painful ones, I was shocked at how easily I could see myself reacting in the same way. (It’s not so often I find myself feeling so emotionally close to a book’s narrator—especially when that person is living rock n’ roll history.)
On a completely off-topic note, I had this book shipped to me on interlibrary loan, and when I opened it up, the binding contained crumbs of what very much appeared to be quite desiccated pot.
Perhaps what drew me in most was the fact that I could so easily relate to Cynthia. In many of the scenes she describes, especially the painful ones, I was shocked at how easily I could see myself reacting in the same way. (It’s not so often I find myself feeling so emotionally close to a book’s narrator—especially when that person is living rock n’ roll history.)
On a completely off-topic note, I had this book shipped to me on interlibrary loan, and when I opened it up, the binding contained crumbs of what very much appeared to be quite desiccated pot.
April 22, 2019
Tagad “Imagine” skanēs daudz savādāk..
Tagad būtu jāizlasa arī Joko patiesība. Vai tāda ir ?
Autores atzīšanās pēdējā lpp (uzreiz nelasiet) ir saviļņojoša un skaudra. Tik un tā - mīlestības cena paliek neatklāta.
Šī nedēļa ir ilgākais laika posms, ko esmu pavadījis ar Bītliem. Ir radušies aizspriedumi, bet tas laikam ir grāmatas spēks.
Tagad būtu jāizlasa arī Joko patiesība. Vai tāda ir ?
Autores atzīšanās pēdējā lpp (uzreiz nelasiet) ir saviļņojoša un skaudra. Tik un tā - mīlestības cena paliek neatklāta.
Šī nedēļa ir ilgākais laika posms, ko esmu pavadījis ar Bītliem. Ir radušies aizspriedumi, bet tas laikam ir grāmatas spēks.
January 28, 2014
Refreshingly honest, moving portrayal of her life as the wife of a man who became a legend. Altered my perception of John, Yoko, and the perceptions we're led to believe. Well worth the read!
May 15, 2014
I was 9 years old when I heard the 1st song that touched me. It wasn’t bubble gum pop, it wasn’t the new boy band.
It was Valotte by Julian Lennon.
I felt a sadness and the heart behind that song and I put it on a mix tape, it was the 80’s after all, and I played it over and over. Then I was allowed to buy the tape and I loved that too.
My father was a musician and had talked about this band from England that had changed music and ruined his career (they played surfer rock) and this concert in DC and blah blah blah,
But I didn’t know who they were I couldn’t remember their name. But one day in the car I won the music war with my brother and I had dad rewind the tape and turn up the car radio one day to hear Valotte again loud enough that I could sing to it.
Dad said, “Do you know who this is”
“Yes, Julian Lennon,” I relied, “I love this song.”
“Do you know who his father was?”
“No, should I?”
“His father was John Lennon.”
“Who?”
Even my mother, who never liked The Beatles turned and said, “You don’t know who The Beatles are?”
Because of Julian I had learned the name of the greatest band the world ever knew. I watched A Hard Day’s Night and then because little to no reading material was available about Julian, I got reading materials about John. I turned my best friend into a Beatles fan and she was as hungry as I was to learn. Me for Julian, her for John.
I wanted to know more about the person who shaped Julian into the person he is.. not John or The Beatles, but Cynthia. Kelly did too because.. well because she was jealous with her John crush.
There was little about her in the few books that we had, but I knew her name. We went to the library (our internet then) and looked up Cynthia Lennon and low and behold there was a book not just about her, but that she had written
I have owned A Twist of Lennon for many years now. It was the most expensive book I ever bought because I bought it out of print in 1995, but it was well worth it to me. It is one of my treasures and is kept in a place of honor in my book collection.
I was always amazed at the grace with which Cynthia did not write with hatred or anger towards John or Yoko. To me she was always the most gracious, spiritual and stoic person in the entire Lennon clan and it was that book that made me a HUGE Cynthia fan, more so than Julian or John.
After that, I scoured every book for things about her, in fact I wouldn’t buy one if she wasn’t on at least 3 pages (I was LUCKY to find that) in a book. I began to feel jeesh they say NOTHING about this woman that he spent half of his adult life with and more importantly the woman who was the woman in his life after Julia. I felt her.... well I will say it..... suppression.
In 1994, I saw Backbeat and said that isn’t Cynthia. (Ironically Cynthia addresses this representation in John much to my amusment)
So, when I was 17, I started a screen play (which I have yet to finish) based on A Twist of Lennon because I felt her story needed to be told. She and others in John's family deserved the true representation of their roles in JOhn's life to be told.
When I read that John was coming out I was over the moon and that is an understatement. I ordered an advanced copy and almost paced the floor to receive it. I wondered what new revelations there would be in it, what new insight.
I was not disappointed!
Cynthia, in her continued grace and spiritualism exposes the darker side of John. She tells the truths that one could sense she was holding back in A Twist of Lennon; the truths she was careful to avoid because John was still alive when A Twist came out.
However, in John she lets loose, exposes the reality and yet somehow always manages to almost explain things away. That isn’t the right wording nor is that they were explained in such a manner as to take the shock away. But there is a way about how she does it that I can't put inot words.
She doesn’t excuse his behavior nor is the reader less stunned by it. But Cynthia knew him almost better than anyone on Earth so she understood him, loved him and forgave him and the reader does too.
She was always able to see past the levity, the violence the cutting sarcasm and see the hurt little boy he was and the man that boy was becoming and the reader does too.
She managed to raise a son in the most hellish nightmare of fame that anyone has ever had to endure. She kept house and her sanity when most wives would have said you know what this is crazy I am out of here! Then she managed to get a relatively quiet divorce at the height of Beatlemania and fade quietly back into the comfort of as normal a life as one can have with John Lennon’s son in tow.
Even through the divorce and the slights that she dealt with both during that marriage and after his death, she never blamed or accused simply stated the facts and how she, or Julian felt. I know that I never would have been able to hold my temper and behave in such a classy way. Further she even understood the connection and stepped gracefully out of the way and went on with her own path of discovery.
Cynthia is strong, artistic, spiritual, enlightened and independent. I knew that from the 1st book. I affirmed just how deeply those things ran in her from this book. I learned about the type of person I wanted to be. As a single mother in similar hostile circumstances, I found strength and inspiration in her life, in her behavior and in her words.
Recently I purchased the audio book as well. Even there Cynthia reads with peace and tranquility. It is almost like guided meditation. There is no hurt or animosity betrayed. You know it's there, of course at certain times, but only because of a knowledge of human nature.
If you are a history buff, read this book.
If like a good rock wife story, Cynthia is it man.
If you like a survivor story, this is good too.
If you like a good love story.. check this book out
I have recommended this book to fans, detractors and uninterested persons everywhere and not one of them has regretted reading it for a second!
To those of you who worship and adore John and/or The Beatles. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!
As the only non-Beatle that was there from the formative years of the band through essentially beginning of the end, Cynthia had a unique historical perspective.
She saw Stuart, Pete, Brian and many others enter and leave. She saw their private moments. Was at times a friend, sister or mother figure to them all. She expereinced Beatlemania from the inside. Most important of all she saw a side of John that no one else, not even Paul got to see.
That perspective helps to understand his music and the man behind the public view. You see a John that later in life almost didn’t exist but if you look at the things he said and did, you too will begin to see what Cynthia always saw….. the lost little boy yearning for love,affection, and approval and never quite getting enough.
This is not an expose.
It is not a slam fest.
John is just Cynthia’s story, all of it; told with enormous love and care.
It was Valotte by Julian Lennon.
I felt a sadness and the heart behind that song and I put it on a mix tape, it was the 80’s after all, and I played it over and over. Then I was allowed to buy the tape and I loved that too.
My father was a musician and had talked about this band from England that had changed music and ruined his career (they played surfer rock) and this concert in DC and blah blah blah,
But I didn’t know who they were I couldn’t remember their name. But one day in the car I won the music war with my brother and I had dad rewind the tape and turn up the car radio one day to hear Valotte again loud enough that I could sing to it.
Dad said, “Do you know who this is”
“Yes, Julian Lennon,” I relied, “I love this song.”
“Do you know who his father was?”
“No, should I?”
“His father was John Lennon.”
“Who?”
Even my mother, who never liked The Beatles turned and said, “You don’t know who The Beatles are?”
Because of Julian I had learned the name of the greatest band the world ever knew. I watched A Hard Day’s Night and then because little to no reading material was available about Julian, I got reading materials about John. I turned my best friend into a Beatles fan and she was as hungry as I was to learn. Me for Julian, her for John.
I wanted to know more about the person who shaped Julian into the person he is.. not John or The Beatles, but Cynthia. Kelly did too because.. well because she was jealous with her John crush.
There was little about her in the few books that we had, but I knew her name. We went to the library (our internet then) and looked up Cynthia Lennon and low and behold there was a book not just about her, but that she had written
I have owned A Twist of Lennon for many years now. It was the most expensive book I ever bought because I bought it out of print in 1995, but it was well worth it to me. It is one of my treasures and is kept in a place of honor in my book collection.
I was always amazed at the grace with which Cynthia did not write with hatred or anger towards John or Yoko. To me she was always the most gracious, spiritual and stoic person in the entire Lennon clan and it was that book that made me a HUGE Cynthia fan, more so than Julian or John.
After that, I scoured every book for things about her, in fact I wouldn’t buy one if she wasn’t on at least 3 pages (I was LUCKY to find that) in a book. I began to feel jeesh they say NOTHING about this woman that he spent half of his adult life with and more importantly the woman who was the woman in his life after Julia. I felt her.... well I will say it..... suppression.
In 1994, I saw Backbeat and said that isn’t Cynthia. (Ironically Cynthia addresses this representation in John much to my amusment)
So, when I was 17, I started a screen play (which I have yet to finish) based on A Twist of Lennon because I felt her story needed to be told. She and others in John's family deserved the true representation of their roles in JOhn's life to be told.
When I read that John was coming out I was over the moon and that is an understatement. I ordered an advanced copy and almost paced the floor to receive it. I wondered what new revelations there would be in it, what new insight.
I was not disappointed!
Cynthia, in her continued grace and spiritualism exposes the darker side of John. She tells the truths that one could sense she was holding back in A Twist of Lennon; the truths she was careful to avoid because John was still alive when A Twist came out.
However, in John she lets loose, exposes the reality and yet somehow always manages to almost explain things away. That isn’t the right wording nor is that they were explained in such a manner as to take the shock away. But there is a way about how she does it that I can't put inot words.
She doesn’t excuse his behavior nor is the reader less stunned by it. But Cynthia knew him almost better than anyone on Earth so she understood him, loved him and forgave him and the reader does too.
She was always able to see past the levity, the violence the cutting sarcasm and see the hurt little boy he was and the man that boy was becoming and the reader does too.
She managed to raise a son in the most hellish nightmare of fame that anyone has ever had to endure. She kept house and her sanity when most wives would have said you know what this is crazy I am out of here! Then she managed to get a relatively quiet divorce at the height of Beatlemania and fade quietly back into the comfort of as normal a life as one can have with John Lennon’s son in tow.
Even through the divorce and the slights that she dealt with both during that marriage and after his death, she never blamed or accused simply stated the facts and how she, or Julian felt. I know that I never would have been able to hold my temper and behave in such a classy way. Further she even understood the connection and stepped gracefully out of the way and went on with her own path of discovery.
Cynthia is strong, artistic, spiritual, enlightened and independent. I knew that from the 1st book. I affirmed just how deeply those things ran in her from this book. I learned about the type of person I wanted to be. As a single mother in similar hostile circumstances, I found strength and inspiration in her life, in her behavior and in her words.
Recently I purchased the audio book as well. Even there Cynthia reads with peace and tranquility. It is almost like guided meditation. There is no hurt or animosity betrayed. You know it's there, of course at certain times, but only because of a knowledge of human nature.
If you are a history buff, read this book.
If like a good rock wife story, Cynthia is it man.
If you like a survivor story, this is good too.
If you like a good love story.. check this book out
I have recommended this book to fans, detractors and uninterested persons everywhere and not one of them has regretted reading it for a second!
To those of you who worship and adore John and/or The Beatles. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!
As the only non-Beatle that was there from the formative years of the band through essentially beginning of the end, Cynthia had a unique historical perspective.
She saw Stuart, Pete, Brian and many others enter and leave. She saw their private moments. Was at times a friend, sister or mother figure to them all. She expereinced Beatlemania from the inside. Most important of all she saw a side of John that no one else, not even Paul got to see.
That perspective helps to understand his music and the man behind the public view. You see a John that later in life almost didn’t exist but if you look at the things he said and did, you too will begin to see what Cynthia always saw….. the lost little boy yearning for love,affection, and approval and never quite getting enough.
This is not an expose.
It is not a slam fest.
John is just Cynthia’s story, all of it; told with enormous love and care.
July 16, 2022
Turning into an amateur Beatles historian.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 544 reviews