The Lives of John Lennon
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | Albert Goldman |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | John Lennon |
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Publication date
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1988 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 719 |
| ISBN | |
The Lives of John Lennon is a 1988 biography of musician John Lennon by American author Albert Goldman. The book is a product of several years of research and hundreds of interviews with many of Lennon's friends, acquaintances, servants and musicians. Notwithstanding, it is best known for its criticism and generally negative representation of the personal lives of Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono.
When first published, The Lives of John Lennon was controversial because of its portrayal of Lennon in a highly critical light. Lennon was presented in the book as a talented but deeply flawed man who manipulated people and relationships throughout his life, flinging them aside when they were no longer useful to him. Goldman also suggested that Lennon was an anti-Semite and a heavy drug-user and that he had dyslexia and schizophrenia. The author even went into detail about the long-rumored homosexual affair between Lennon and The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, as well as alleging a number of liaisons by Lennon with other men, including a claim that he solicited underage male prostitutes in Thailand. This latter assertion greatly angered Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney. The book was criticized by Lennon fans for allegedly containing much unsubstantiated conjecture, and tending to present worst-case scenarios when doing so.
Lennon was indeed a heavy drug user, as has now been acknowledged by most people who knew the musician well, including Ono and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Lennon. The same is true of Goldman's claims about Lennon's tendency towards violence, a tendency Lennon himself owned up to in a Playboy interview. Concerning Lennon's supposed bisexuality, Ono herself said in a 1981 interview that she told Lennon—although it's unclear whether or not she was just teasing him—that he was a "closet fag" because he used to tell Yoko he liked her because she looked "like a bloke in drag". Of the affair Goldman alleges between Lennon and Epstein, Lennon said in his 1980 Playboy interview that their relationship "was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated."
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