The Lives of John Lennon is a 1988 biography of musician John Lennon by American
author Albert Goldman. The book is a product of several years of research and hundreds of interviews with Lennon's friends, acquaintances, servants and musicians. Notwithstanding, it is best known for its criticism and generally negative representation of the personal lives of Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono.
Lennon in the work
When first published in 1988, The Lives of John Lennon was controversial because of its portrayal of Lennon in a highly critical light. Lennon was presented in the book as a talented but deeply flawed man who manipulated people and relationships throughout his life, flinging them aside when they were no longer useful to him. Goldman also suggested that Lennon was an anti-Semite and a heavy drug-user and that he was dyslexic and schizophrenic.
Sexuality
The author even went into detail about the long-rumored homosexual affair between Lennon and The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein (previously discussed in both Pete Shotton’s Lennon in My Life and Peter Brown's The Love You Make), as well as alleging a number of liaisons by Lennon with other men, including a claim that he solicited underage male prostitutes in Thailand. This latter assertion greatly angered Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney. The book was criticized by Lennon fans for allegedly containing much unsubstantiated conjecture, and tending to present worst-case scenarios when doing so.
Concerning Lennon's supposed bisexuality, Ono said in a 1981 interview that she told Lennon—although it's unclear whether or not she was just teasing him—that he was a "closet fag" because he used to tell Yoko he liked her because she looked "like a bloke in drag". Of the affair Goldman alleges between Lennon and Epstein, Lennon said in his 1980 Playboy interview that their relationship "was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated."
Violence
According to accounts in Goldman's book, Lennon felt guilty over having attacked a sailor he met during the Beatles' time in Hamburg, and also over the sudden death of bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe, whose sister, Pauline, later falsely accused Lennon of murdering. Goldman also presents a story from an Ono assistant that Ono's 1968 miscarriage was triggered by a beating from Lennon. Other primary sources also support Goldman's claims about Lennon's tendency toward violence, a tendency Lennon himself owned up to in a Playboy interview.
Drug use
Lennon was a heavy drug user, as has been acknowledged by most people who knew him well, including Ono and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Lennon. Goldman also claims that when Lennon started making music again in 1980 following a long seclusion, he was not oblivious to Manhattan's cocaine-fueled disco scene. According to Goldman, on the day Lennon was murdered he was scheduled to undergo plastic surgery several days later to repair his nasal septum due to snorting cocaine, which he supposedly did at the Hit Factory recording studio where he and Ono recorded their album Double Fantasy. Goldman does not cite anyone who might have witnessed this at the studio.
Goldman alleges further that on December 8, 1980 (the day of Lennon's murder) not only did the singer's cocaine snorting warrant plastic surgery, but he was in such bad physical condition from drug abuse and lack of exercise that during his autopsy the medical examiner recorded observations to that effect, overlooking the five bullet wounds momentarily.
Goldman further asserts that this drug-addled, dangerously unhealthy isolation was a result of Lennon's natural laziness and dependence on strong women throughout his life. Goldman also claims that Lennon’s isolation and physical decline were instigated by Yoko Ono, who Goldman claims was jealous of Lennon and saw his fame as competition for her own musical ambitions.
Yoko Ono
Lennon comes across much better than Yoko Ono, for whom Goldman shows unbridled contempt. Goldman insults Ono's appearance, describing her as "simian-looking". Goldman alleges that Ono had been a prostitute while attending Sarah Lawrence College, and depicts her as a willing participant in various alleged crimes of her previous husband, Tony Cox. Goldman also goes into great detail about Ono's treatment of Lennon's first wife Cynthia, and Ono's unconventional behavior and personality. Goldman also depicts Ono as pressuring Lennon into heroin use, as greedy and stingy, and indulging in infidelity with gigolos.