Ok. I'm going to try not to review this book, as I'm not finished. However, now that I've finished the chapters on John Lennon's childhood, let me critique some methodology. Norman gives emotional and personal details about Lennon, his parents Alf and Julia, Alf's brother and his wife, Julia's three sisters and their husbands, Julia's parents and other relatives. Norman also gives detailed accounts of life in British seaports during about a 60 year span, day-to-day details of the most mundane but specific nature, as well as reports on how seamen were tracked, hired and fired. Let me say, as a history major, that he does all of this without a single reference or the merest shred of a bibliography. Anyone who could possibly corroborate Norman's version of the story is dead. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt (for now) on his observations of life in a British port because I'm assuming that reasonably done research would turn up evidence that supports most of his characterizations (although I hope I can someday do that research and find that he was completely wrong). But how am I to believe any of it when he has the audacity to put it out there in print without so much as a scanty bibliography to prove he didn't just make it up?
I'm not accusing him of presenting fiction as fact as has been in the news lately, I'm simply asking, "How hard can it be to show your sources?" The Beatles (which as it happens were the event that made Lennon's story printworthy anyway) were a social, musical, cultural force that helped to change the course of modern history (as I see it). Why doesn't anyone take writing about them as a serious academic pursuit? There is no good cultural or social history existing in print. Why not? All we get is this arrogant and melodramatic drivel, complete with a jacket note that has the author lauding his own qualifications as a Beatle biographer.
So far, so lazy, Mr. Norman.
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