Interview with Elizabeth Partridge

Q: Why did you decide to write a biography on John Lennon?
I was nearly sixteen when Sergeant Pepper exploded onto the scene. It was the Summer of Love in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I lived. Sgt. Pepper was full of magic and promise: we were going to change the world, end racism and sexism, end the war in Vietnam. A longtime Beatles fan, I found George sexy, Paul cute, Ringo laconic. John fascinated and terrified me. He was sarcastic, angry and brilliant, liable to mouth off. His singing was poignant, filling me with longings I didn’t understand. When I decided, decades later, to write a biography on someone who had been influential in shaping the sixties, it was an inevitable, magnetic pull.

Q: Did you have a lot of preconceptions about Lennon before you started writing the book?
As a child of the Sixties, it would have been impossible not to have preconceptions about Lennon. It was helpful, however, that I wasn’t a dyed-in-the-wool fan before I began the book. I didn’t have trouble getting to know him more deepy because I didn’t have precious illusions about him to protect. I found him more than I expected – more tender, dependent, crazy, creative, brilliant, and funny. At times I also found him infuriating.

Q: Was it hard to write a biography on Lennon?
There has been so much written about him that is untrue, highly speculative or downright trashy. I had to get back to the primary sources to be truthful. Fortunately, Lennon spoke honestly to a number of journalists and reporters – some of whom he considered friends – so I wove several hundred quotes into the book and let him speak for himself.

Lennon’s song lyrics also expose his deepest feelings. His songs are spare and beautiful poetry, driven straight into your heart with music. Listening to his songs, you feel like you know something about him you didn’t know before, and something about yourself you can’t quite express.

Q: You have more than 150 photos in your book. Was it hard to chose them?
I dove into the photo research hoping to find an image of Lennon that had never before been published. To my surprise, I was able to include three previously unpublished photos, and several rarely published.

I come from a family of photographers -- my grandmother was Imogen Cunningham and my godmother was Dorothea Lange. Being raised in a photographic family, I’m trained to see the narrative power of strong visual images. Just looking at the photos in All I Want Is the Truth, readers can trace his life from the night he was born during a World War II air raid on Liverpool in 1940 to the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park.

Lennon loved to be photographed, and lit up around a camera. I was able to include incredibly revealing photographs by Annie Leibovitz, Ethan Russell, and Astrid Kirchherr.

Fortunately, a book like this becomes highly collaborative once most of the writing is done. My editor, Jill Davis, worked insanely hard to find fantastic photos, as well as going over and over what I’d written to make it stronger. Once we had the text and photos, the designer, Jim Hoover, put them together in a way that is breathtaking. And the copy editor, Janet Pascal, the unsung heroine of the book, did the 1001 details that make the book snap.

Q: What were you most struck by as you put together John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth?
As a young teenager, Lennon had hallucinatory images while staring at his face in the mirror. Twice in his adult life he came perilously close to going over the edge, and brought himself back with heroic effort. He was smart enough to realize he needed to be contained by someone stronger and more grounded than he was – his Aunt Mimi, Paul McCartney, Cynthia Lennon, Yoko Ono. I tried to deal openly with Lennon’s life on the genius/crazy cusp by revealing Lennon’s tender vulnerability under his brash exterior.

It wasn’t until I was putting together the photos, that I really understood how much Lennon lost by living such a famous life. The Beatle years were so crazy, as they were rushed from hotel rooms to performances and back again with the screaming crowds kept back by police. The madness even extended to those around them losing their privacy. As I looked through the photos I could feel the pressure inexorably gathering during Lennon’s life, tragically ending in his being shot to death. It all hit me viscerally in the photo of Yoko emerging from the Roosevelt Hospital hours after Lennon’s death. She opened the hospital door and hit a bank of photographers and flashbulbs. I looked at the photo and thought: is nothing private? Even in her extreme grief, she was assaulted.

Lennon fans who’ve read the book say they come away with a more profound understanding and appreciation of Lennon’s struggles, and how they made his music so moving.

Q: What would Lennon’s life have been like if he hadn’t been killed in 1980?
I’ve wondered about this so much. Would he have emerged from his Dakota seclusion, as he seemed to be doing, full of renewed vigor and enthusiasm for music? Would his music have lost its power, or stayed as searingly honest and touching? Would he have retreated back into the Dakota again, or plunged into some new creative endeavor? Would he have loved computers and email, or would they have frustrated and confounded him? It’s impossible to know.

Q: Many teenagers seem to be discovering Lennon’s work today, as they have been doing for decades. What do you hope they get out of reading your book?
Young adults are searching to make sense of their lives, and find ways to express themselves. Lennon’s a great example of using your anger to fuel creativity. Lennon dared. He persevered. He leapt off cliffs when others turned back.

Writing All I Want Is the Truth gave me a chance to weave in a background of several fascinating historical times: the aftermath of WWII, rock and roll’s roots in African American blues, the power and transformation of the Sixties, the regrouping and introspection of the Seventies. I hope young adults will be informed and inspired by Lennon’s life.

Q: Despite everything that been written about Lennon and the many times we’ve heard his songs, his music still appeals to us.
Lennon understood that writing songs with simple, boiled-down lyrics made them incredibly powerful. The sheer simplicity gave his songs amazing staying power, and made many of them applicable today. Think of Imagine. We’re facing challenging times, and Lennon’s life and music offer a rich wellspring to tap into.