The Life of a Timeless Dreamer
Reviewing “The Last Days of John Lennon” by James Patterson with Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge
I’m a huge Beatles fan. I simply love The Beatles, and their music has been a big part of my life since I was young. That’s why I have to say upfront that reading this book was painful at moments …but don’t get me wrong, it’s a really good book; please keep reading and you’ll see why.
The Last Days of John Lennon was written by James Patterson, the best-selling author behind fictional characters like Alex Cross and The Women’s Murder Club book series. He’s also well known for his non-fiction work like Filthy Rich — the book about Jeffrey Epstein that became a successful Netflix series. Along with him in writing this book are award-winning authors and journalists Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. Having the three of them write a book together about John Lennon really set high expectations of what I would find in the book — and I wasn’t disappointed.
There are many books out there about The Beatles’ story, their contribution to music and culture, the Beatlemania phenomenon, and when the band parted ways. There are also many John Lennon biographies. And there are also, of course, many articles about his murder. From its title it may seem that the book would only talk about the final days and moments of Lennon’s life, but there is so much more included in it. One of the things that is so special about it is that it is a comprehensive combination of all the above — the band’s’ story, Beatlemania, John’s life before, during and after The Beatles, his relationship with Yoko Ono and his tragic death. It’s all weaved together in such a smart way that the book keeps you engaged through its pages even though you already know how it’s (sadly) going to end.
Weaving the beginning and the end
The book’s prologue takes us back to December 6, 1980 with John’s assassin — Mark David Chapman — making his way from Hawaii to New York with the sole purpose of killing Lennon. I have to say that reading this was spine-chilling. Based on what they could find in reports and case files, the authors went into what could have been Chapman’s thoughts and actions at the time and used them to tell the story. The prologue ends with Chapman telling the cab driver “I’m Mark Chapman. Remember my name if you hear it again.” I honestly don’t know if he did say these words to the driver or if they were part of the authors’ creative license but they sure gave me the chills.
The book then takes us further back in time to the moment when John met Paul McCartney back in 1957, and they were 17 and 15 years old respectively. And from then on, we travel through the years — from when they were The Quarrymen, to the first Beatles single (Love Me Do), to becoming one of the greatest music bands of all time, and to its final days — including the iconic photoshoot at the zebra crossing on Abbey Road.
Although the book does cover a lot of The Beatles’ story, it focuses mostly on John — which makes perfect sense to me. After all, this is a book about John. And so, after The Beatles split up, it walks us through his solo years, his fight for peace, his immigration struggles in the United States and of course his life with Yoko Ono and their son Sean. We also take a deep dive into his final years, his relationship with Sean and his and Yoko’s work on Double Fantasy, his last album — released only three weeks before his death.
There is so much to be said about The Beatles and John Lennon, and so much that has already been written. However, this book is cleverly structured in short chapters that give readers insightful and interesting details about their story. Enriched by exclusive interviews and words from Paul McCartney, Elton John, Mick Jagger, and other friends and associates of Lennon, the book tells us the story in a very light and conversational way — you just keep reading and reading.
However, in between these chapters, the authors squeeze in short chapters about Mark Chapman’s thoughts and whereabouts between December 6 and 8, 1980 — the days when he patiently waited for the opportunity to approach and kill John. And this is where it became painful for me. These chapters made me shiver. As I mentioned above, we all know how the story ended but it was still sad for me to read. It’s one of those times where you wish the end would magically change but then it just doesn’t.
Whether you are a Beatles or a John Lennon fan or not, this is definitely an interesting read. Even if you’ve read other books about The Beatles, or a Lennon biography, it is most likely that in this book you will find something that you didn’t know before. I would have liked a different title for it though — one that could encompass the thoroughness of its content. Maybe the authors thought of it as a way to differentiate it from other books about Lennon. I’ll most likely never know the answer, but it is a great read, and as a hard core Beatles fan I was pleased to read a good book about them… and in which in fact I did learn things that I didn’t know before.
