Fool’s Goldman: Reliving “The Lives of John Lennon”

By |2013-08-13T22:41:29-07:00March 19, 2013|biography, books, John Lennon, Lennon|

DEVIN McKINNEY  •  Warning—there’s a lot of rant here, most of it to do with Albert Goldman but some of it just my articulated flailings about the nature of biography and criticism, writers and readers. But Michael asked, I answered, this is our blog, and we make the rules. So strap on your poncho and feel free to skip around. Reading the “Drugs and Differences” comments, I took special note when the ghost of Albert Goldman reared its shiny dome. He’s so easy to despise and so difficult to defend on any level, but I’m always curious about the case to be [...]

Albert Goldman and Hunter Davies on Beatles Biographies

By |2014-12-24T10:58:10-08:00April 29, 2010|biography, books, John Lennon|

"What's the creepiest photo you have?... Yeah, that one." This is a two-part news program from 1989, where the author of the muckraking "The Lives of John Lennon" (just released at that time) debates Hunter Davies, the author of "The Beatles" authorized biography from 1968. Davies is very charming, and makes some very good points about Goldman's tendency to veer off into—well, the nicest thing to call it is "creative writing." I think that's exactly how any sensible person should read it; at points Goldman stops writing about the real John Lennon, whoever he was, and begins crafting a character [...]

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