Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon

Rating:
Summary: Depressing yet Moving
Review: Even a dedicated Lennonphile who find new material in this well-written and poignantly sad examination of John's last year. The closer Rosen edges towards the assassination, the sadder and more wistful the reader feels. It's puzzling and amazing that an icon like Lennon was not very happy towards the end of his too-short life. The book brings out the numerous infidelities that marred the Lennon-Ono partnership, supposedly one of the greatest love stories of the era. Yoko comes off fairly well here, which is surprising considering the usually brutal treatment she receives at the hands of biographers.

Her manipulative nature is exemplified in Lennon's decision to include Yoko's pathetic musical material on his last album, "Double Fantasy," which was utterly compromised by having Yoko wail on every other track. Her control over Lennon's decision-making processes is detailed here and is sobering. It's frustrating that John relied upon Yoko so heavily in making professonal decisions when his musical career had benn nearly without parallel.

Ultimately this is an interesting and well-written book with few errors of fact and some new information (rare for any Beatles-related book). One of the most depressing nights of my life was when I heard John was killed, and this book brings back the anguish quite well. Twenty years later, all Lennon fans will eternally ask themselves how much more great music John had within him. Tragically, we will never know because of Mark David Chapman.

Rating:
Summary: Life after The Beatles
Review: Previous reviews discredit author Robert Rosen because he states in the beginning of the book that in the midst of going through JL's diaries and taking notes in order to create the book, the diaries were stolen by Rosen's friend and JL's former personal assistant Fred Seaman. Rosen admits that much of the book has been written based on what he remembers reading from Lennon's diaries, notes he has taken from the diaries, conversations with people close to Lennon, and his imagination. However, at the end of the book, Rosen states that since the first edition was published, the diaries have been returned to him and a new edition, this edition, was created. By reading this, you'll find that JL was up to more than baking bread and playing with Sean during his seclusion from 1975-80. His daily routine is completely laid out for us by Rosen. JL often recorded the exact time he awoke each morning and what the weather was like. He was picky about his weight and what he ate. Like all of us, he had a difficult time staying on a diet. He became so bored at the Dakota that he taught himself to program dreams and would sleep much of the day. He and Yoko lived strictly by their horoscopes and Mercury Retrograde. The power of numbers was also something they lived by. For instance, the significance of the number 9 in John's life. He and Sean were born on October 9th. The Dakota is on 72nd Street (7+2 = 9). They lived in apartment 72. The Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9th... there's a lot more that the book goes into. They consulted a psychic daily when making business or personal decisions. The psychic, or Oracle, as John and Yoko called him, was justafiably fired by Yoko after John's murder... if he was that good, wouldn't he have been able to warn them that a psycopath was stalking John? We learn that John loved May Pang up until his tragic death and he often fantasized about her. His time with her called "the lost weekend" was actually 18 months and it consisted of sex, sex, and more sex. The author also gives us an idea of mark David Chapman's daily routine and his schedule on December 8, 1980. The book concludes with kind of a "where are they now" section that discusses Julian, Sean, Yoko, Cynthia Lennon, May Pang, and more. Very easy to read and recommended for those who want to know more about a day in the life of John Lennon.

Rating:
Summary: Highly readable
Review: Rosen charts the last 5 years of this musical genius and more particularly the last year of his life. The story of his quest is quite dramatic, as all the direct research material that he acquired initially was stolen and he had to start again from scratch without the direct source material. The book is thus based on public writings and interviews, the historical record, the music and conversations with staff, business associates, family, friends and lovers of Lennon, including Yoko, Sean and Julian.

He retraces Lennon's steps through Liverpool, London, New York and Bermuda and tries to paint a picture of daily life in the Dakota building overlooking Central Park. It is interesting to know that John read the 3 New York Dailies but also loved the supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer, Midnight Globe and the National Star. The book is quite detailed on the recording process of the Double Fantasy album.

The last chapters narrate the murder of Lennon by Mark Chapman and the trial, at which Chapman quoted from Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye.

It is an interesting book but it must be noted that lots of it is based on the author's imagination and shouldn't be taken as fact. A gripping read, nevertheless, and the text is made accessible to students of Lennon's life by a thorough index.

Rating:
Summary: MUST LENNON READ
Review: This book is a must read for any John Lennon fan. This really gives a great discription of his seclusion days in the Dakota. It really showed him how commited he was to Sean and Yoko. I still believe he was a psycho, but I have a better understanding after reading this book.