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If you're only a casual Beatles fan - or no fan at all, for that matter -, then all the attention paid to the first volume of a planned biographical trilogy about the band is probably bemusing for you. Another biography? Why? Etc. If, otoh, you're somewhat familiar with at least part of the biographical literature already in existence, then the name Mark Lewisohn makes you sit up. He has a - deserved - reputation as the expert of experts, whose research was invaluable to many a preceding biographer, whose 1988 The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, which used just about every note EMI ever archived on the Beatles recording, revolutionized and partially turned upside down the until then accepted ideas about who contributed what. So when a couple of years ago it was announced he was working on his own biography, which, this being Mark Lewisohn, would not be contained in one volume but in three, the expectations were high. (Also a bit of nervousness. A brilliant fact finder does not necessarily a good prose stylist make.)
Now that the eagerly awaited first volume (covering basically births till New Year's Eve 1962/1963, i.e. stopping at the dawn of the Philip Larkin immortalized Annus Mirabilis) is out there, we can judge for ourselves. Naturally, I pounced as soon as I could and have now emerged bleary eyed and rivetted. General judgment: worth the wait, and the expectations. How a reader who has no idea who the hell any of these people were beyond being able to name the four Beatles themselves would approach it, I have no idea, of course, but I think Lewisohn does a good job of writing for fans and casual readers alike, not taking for granted you know your Neil Aspinall from your Mal Evans, or for that matter have any idea what the hell a Getsch is. Also, which is great for me since I'd rather know where Quote X and avowed circumstance Y are coming from, he's excellent with the footnotes. Of which there are actually two categories; some are given at the end of each chapter (pronounciation guides for the names once the Beatles have arrived in Germany, for example), while the quote annotations (i.e. which quote is from which interview/memoir/other primary source) are in the appendix. While Mark Lewisohn is no Terry Pratchett, his footnotes are always worth reading, not least because there some hidden gems of additional information in them and because he sometimes includes some evaluation of source trustworthiness there.
As for the story: it has the advantage of being an origin story, which tends to be most people's favourite part of anyone's dramatic tale anyway, and there is a reason why so many people have told it before. Format-wise, Lewisohn makes one choice from the get go that sets his work apart from the previous volumes. Your other Beatles group biographies are basically structured thusly:
A) John Lennon's birth, childhood and adolescence up to the point where he meets Paul
B) Paul McCartney's childhood, a bit shorter than the Lennon one, until the encounter; then a chapter or so on John and Paul befriending before Paul brings in George.
C) George Harrison's childhood, even briefer. Group biography procedes until 1962, at which point:
D) Mini Ringo biography up to his replacing Pete Best as the drummer of the Beatles.
Not Tune In, which can't resist starting with John (though in order of birth Ringo is older), either, but immediately after setting up the Lennon family background pre John's birth switches over to the McCartneys, then the Harrisons, then the Starkeys, and then procedes to write a genuine life story for all four from the get go, with all four getting detailed narrative attention, which means, among other things, that by the time Ringo joins the group you know as much about his previous life as you do about theirs. Since the groups Ringo played in, most importantly, but not exclusively the Hurricanes, were successful before the Beatles were, this also enriches the picture of the Liverpool musical scene. Nor is he the only one introduced into the narrative before his path crosses with his future bandmates. Brian Epstein and George Martin both enter the tale in 1960, so that again, by the time they encounter the Beatles the reader is far more familiar with Brian and George M. than if they'd gotten just a brief summary of their pre-Beatles lives.( In Brian Epstein's case, this narrative approach also serves to underline who much he and the Beatles were made for each other, because by late 1961 they were as restless and dissatisfied with their then status quo as he was.) Singling out these two for particular narrative attention (in addition to the future Fab Four) also feels right in terms of the importance they were going to have on each other's lives, though Lewisohn doesn't do obvious foreshadowing. It's there if you want to spot it, but not hammered down. (For example, the drinking situation in the Starkey household, and Ringo's observance that his parents - meaning his mother and stepfather, his biological father having walked out very early in his life - were alcoholics without him or them realising or calling it thus - is foreshadowing if you know that by the 1980, Ringo himself was well beyond even what's taken for granted with rock stars and ended up going Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason, but if you don't, it's simply part of the story told.)
In terms of agenda and partiality, my own impression is that Lewisohn is fair to all four, describing their virtues and flaws alike. Mind you, that won't stop the more hardcore partisans of each to feel their guy didn't get enough understanding/got more than his fair share of criticism, because such is the nature of fandom. (Peter Doggett, whose You Never Give Me Your Money about the breakup of the Beatles and the aftermath is also a book which in my opinion manages to be fair to all four, wrote an entertaining blog entry about this phenomenon: "Equally valuable for me was the chance to read other people's interpretations of which Beatle(s) I favoured in the narrative. My intention was to be as even-handed as possible, but during the course of writing the book, I felt saddest and sorriest for Paul McCartney - even while I was highlighting things that he might have done and said differently. One Amazon reviewer reckoned that I showed a definite bias towards George Harrison; another, in an unrestrained attack on the book, decided that I was nothing more than another author adopting the "brown nose" position towards John Lennon, without a good word to say for Paul. ("PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't buy this book!", his review ends.) And another felt that Ringo came out best, whereas I was concerned that, because he maintained the lowest profile for most of my narrative, Ringo tended only to appear in the story in negative terms. Nobody, however, thought that I showed any special sympathy for Paul - which just goes to prove that the book you're writing, and the book you THINK you're writing, can be two very different things. " ) He's also really good in including fandom itself into the tale; from the earliest fans of the band (very few pre-Hamburg, but they did exist, and the earnest correspondance excerpts are rather endearing, because the boys - who really were boys at that point, teenagers, were thrilled about the fanmail and wrote back) to the first mass reactions when the Beatles started get on the radio in 1962, it's all brought to life, and there are priceless gems among these stories. Since most of them are told by female fans, they also illuminate what it was like to be a rock music interested girl in the late 50s/early 60s, which forms an interesting counter point to the main narrative since of course Our Heroes started out as passionate male fans of rock music themselves.
New information: some, going from the minor (say, an origin story of I Saw Her Standing There I hadn't been familiar with) to the major (one of Lewisohn's big coups is to debunk no less a story than the John Lennon Ur-Trauma Tale of having to choose between his parents, or at the very least call it heavily into question, more about that below the cut). Also, he's simply able to provide details about things that previous biographers had to only briefly mention because they were covering far more time in only volume (say, Paul's and George's teenage hitchhiking trips). And one of his great strengths is the firmness of dates, which allows him to illuminate contexts that were previously unlooked at. (For example: Julia being pregnant with her third child when returning John to Mimi for good.) And he managed to interview Neil Aspinall (Liverpool Institute schoolmate, roadie, confidant and later Apple boss; one of the two people most constantly around the Beatles throughout their lives) before the later's death, which since Neil Aspinall spent a life time NOT giving interviews is fantastic from a historian's pov.
What about the competition? Without mentioning him by name, he's unable to resist taking a potshot at Philip Norman (in the section discussing how much or little Brian's homosexuality and supposed attraction to John in particular informed his choice of the Beatles), but other than that, I didn't get the impression he's settling scores, and in the footnotes there is often praise for this book or that which first unearthed this and that information.
Style: earnest and readable. He goes for matter of factly but can't resist being swept away by the drama a couple of times. There is the occasional pun, but only one comparison/metaphor that made me groan. Most importantly, though, the narrative voice gives you the impression that the author somehow managed to never lose his passion for what made the Beatles compelling to him to begin with. (Important, that; I remember choosing the subject of my doctoral thesis with the question "whose novels will I still be able to enjoy reading for the hell of it even after combing them through academically?" in mind, because wading through details and looking at downsides really can sometimes take the joy away.)
With all this in minds: here are some choice quotes for your own judgment:
( Details, Details and Examples below the cut )
Now that the eagerly awaited first volume (covering basically births till New Year's Eve 1962/1963, i.e. stopping at the dawn of the Philip Larkin immortalized Annus Mirabilis) is out there, we can judge for ourselves. Naturally, I pounced as soon as I could and have now emerged bleary eyed and rivetted. General judgment: worth the wait, and the expectations. How a reader who has no idea who the hell any of these people were beyond being able to name the four Beatles themselves would approach it, I have no idea, of course, but I think Lewisohn does a good job of writing for fans and casual readers alike, not taking for granted you know your Neil Aspinall from your Mal Evans, or for that matter have any idea what the hell a Getsch is. Also, which is great for me since I'd rather know where Quote X and avowed circumstance Y are coming from, he's excellent with the footnotes. Of which there are actually two categories; some are given at the end of each chapter (pronounciation guides for the names once the Beatles have arrived in Germany, for example), while the quote annotations (i.e. which quote is from which interview/memoir/other primary source) are in the appendix. While Mark Lewisohn is no Terry Pratchett, his footnotes are always worth reading, not least because there some hidden gems of additional information in them and because he sometimes includes some evaluation of source trustworthiness there.
As for the story: it has the advantage of being an origin story, which tends to be most people's favourite part of anyone's dramatic tale anyway, and there is a reason why so many people have told it before. Format-wise, Lewisohn makes one choice from the get go that sets his work apart from the previous volumes. Your other Beatles group biographies are basically structured thusly:
A) John Lennon's birth, childhood and adolescence up to the point where he meets Paul
B) Paul McCartney's childhood, a bit shorter than the Lennon one, until the encounter; then a chapter or so on John and Paul befriending before Paul brings in George.
C) George Harrison's childhood, even briefer. Group biography procedes until 1962, at which point:
D) Mini Ringo biography up to his replacing Pete Best as the drummer of the Beatles.
Not Tune In, which can't resist starting with John (though in order of birth Ringo is older), either, but immediately after setting up the Lennon family background pre John's birth switches over to the McCartneys, then the Harrisons, then the Starkeys, and then procedes to write a genuine life story for all four from the get go, with all four getting detailed narrative attention, which means, among other things, that by the time Ringo joins the group you know as much about his previous life as you do about theirs. Since the groups Ringo played in, most importantly, but not exclusively the Hurricanes, were successful before the Beatles were, this also enriches the picture of the Liverpool musical scene. Nor is he the only one introduced into the narrative before his path crosses with his future bandmates. Brian Epstein and George Martin both enter the tale in 1960, so that again, by the time they encounter the Beatles the reader is far more familiar with Brian and George M. than if they'd gotten just a brief summary of their pre-Beatles lives.( In Brian Epstein's case, this narrative approach also serves to underline who much he and the Beatles were made for each other, because by late 1961 they were as restless and dissatisfied with their then status quo as he was.) Singling out these two for particular narrative attention (in addition to the future Fab Four) also feels right in terms of the importance they were going to have on each other's lives, though Lewisohn doesn't do obvious foreshadowing. It's there if you want to spot it, but not hammered down. (For example, the drinking situation in the Starkey household, and Ringo's observance that his parents - meaning his mother and stepfather, his biological father having walked out very early in his life - were alcoholics without him or them realising or calling it thus - is foreshadowing if you know that by the 1980, Ringo himself was well beyond even what's taken for granted with rock stars and ended up going Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason, but if you don't, it's simply part of the story told.)
In terms of agenda and partiality, my own impression is that Lewisohn is fair to all four, describing their virtues and flaws alike. Mind you, that won't stop the more hardcore partisans of each to feel their guy didn't get enough understanding/got more than his fair share of criticism, because such is the nature of fandom. (Peter Doggett, whose You Never Give Me Your Money about the breakup of the Beatles and the aftermath is also a book which in my opinion manages to be fair to all four, wrote an entertaining blog entry about this phenomenon: "Equally valuable for me was the chance to read other people's interpretations of which Beatle(s) I favoured in the narrative. My intention was to be as even-handed as possible, but during the course of writing the book, I felt saddest and sorriest for Paul McCartney - even while I was highlighting things that he might have done and said differently. One Amazon reviewer reckoned that I showed a definite bias towards George Harrison; another, in an unrestrained attack on the book, decided that I was nothing more than another author adopting the "brown nose" position towards John Lennon, without a good word to say for Paul. ("PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't buy this book!", his review ends.) And another felt that Ringo came out best, whereas I was concerned that, because he maintained the lowest profile for most of my narrative, Ringo tended only to appear in the story in negative terms. Nobody, however, thought that I showed any special sympathy for Paul - which just goes to prove that the book you're writing, and the book you THINK you're writing, can be two very different things. " ) He's also really good in including fandom itself into the tale; from the earliest fans of the band (very few pre-Hamburg, but they did exist, and the earnest correspondance excerpts are rather endearing, because the boys - who really were boys at that point, teenagers, were thrilled about the fanmail and wrote back) to the first mass reactions when the Beatles started get on the radio in 1962, it's all brought to life, and there are priceless gems among these stories. Since most of them are told by female fans, they also illuminate what it was like to be a rock music interested girl in the late 50s/early 60s, which forms an interesting counter point to the main narrative since of course Our Heroes started out as passionate male fans of rock music themselves.
New information: some, going from the minor (say, an origin story of I Saw Her Standing There I hadn't been familiar with) to the major (one of Lewisohn's big coups is to debunk no less a story than the John Lennon Ur-Trauma Tale of having to choose between his parents, or at the very least call it heavily into question, more about that below the cut). Also, he's simply able to provide details about things that previous biographers had to only briefly mention because they were covering far more time in only volume (say, Paul's and George's teenage hitchhiking trips). And one of his great strengths is the firmness of dates, which allows him to illuminate contexts that were previously unlooked at. (For example: Julia being pregnant with her third child when returning John to Mimi for good.) And he managed to interview Neil Aspinall (Liverpool Institute schoolmate, roadie, confidant and later Apple boss; one of the two people most constantly around the Beatles throughout their lives) before the later's death, which since Neil Aspinall spent a life time NOT giving interviews is fantastic from a historian's pov.
What about the competition? Without mentioning him by name, he's unable to resist taking a potshot at Philip Norman (in the section discussing how much or little Brian's homosexuality and supposed attraction to John in particular informed his choice of the Beatles), but other than that, I didn't get the impression he's settling scores, and in the footnotes there is often praise for this book or that which first unearthed this and that information.
Style: earnest and readable. He goes for matter of factly but can't resist being swept away by the drama a couple of times. There is the occasional pun, but only one comparison/metaphor that made me groan. Most importantly, though, the narrative voice gives you the impression that the author somehow managed to never lose his passion for what made the Beatles compelling to him to begin with. (Important, that; I remember choosing the subject of my doctoral thesis with the question "whose novels will I still be able to enjoy reading for the hell of it even after combing them through academically?" in mind, because wading through details and looking at downsides really can sometimes take the joy away.)
With all this in minds: here are some choice quotes for your own judgment:
( Details, Details and Examples below the cut )
