Philip Norman – författare

For more than a quarter century, biographer Philip Norman''s internationally bestselling Shout! has been unchallenged as the definitive biography of the Beatles. Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom being a Beatle was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, Norman presents the comprehensive and most revealing portrait of John Lennon ever published.

This masterly biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every aspect of Lennon''s much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore—his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The book''s numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon—whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before—and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her marriage to John.

“[A] haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work.” -New York Times

Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictions—tough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure—and reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days.

''A thorough, objective telling of McCartney''s story - in and out of the most famous band ever.'' ESQUIREThe first biography written with McCartney''s approval and with access to family members and friends closest to him.In 2013, Sir Paul McCartney granted Philip Norman ''tacit approval'' as his biographer. The result is a masterly and complex portrait of the most successful songwriter in history.It gives a unique insight into McCartney''s childhood, blighted by the loss of his mother when he was fourteen, and into the creative symbiosis and fierce rivalry between John Lennon and himself that powered the Beatles'' music. Here, too, for the first time, is the full story of McCartney''s triumphant but troubled post-Beatles years: the tragic death of his first wife, Linda, and the chaotic divorce from his second wife, Heather Mills.Paul McCartney is the definitive life of a long-misunderstood genius that superbly evokes half a century of popular music and culture.