08 June 2005 JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH by Elizabeth Partridge, Penguin/Viking, October 2005, ISBN: 0-670-05954-4

"For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them"

--In My Life

"In an interview with RKO radio network just six hours before his death, John spoke about the opening up that had occurred during the sixties. 'The thing the sixties did,' he said, 'was show us the possibility and responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.' "

For me, the possibilities began at my cousin Pam's house on one of those Sundays when all the Sicilians (Mom's family) got together "up the Island" for an afternoon and evening of lasagne, cannolis, conversation, and booze. It was the end of 1963, I was eight, and President Kennedy had been murdered just a few weeks earlier.

Eleven year-old Pam told me she had this new record I had to hear. (As I had no older siblings and she was the cousin closest in age to me, she played the big sister role up through college.)

I stood there as Pam turned up the volume and dropped the needle. It was a 45 of I Want to Hold Your Hand b/w I Saw Her Standing There.

One effect of hearing that record was that for the next dozen years, just like Pavlov's dog, I would drop everything when Pam told me to come listen to a new record. Another result is that I would never in a million years have been able to bring up an image of the house that Pam moved out of more than forty years ago, if it weren't for recalling so vividly that pivotal experience from my childhood.

"But now these days are gone and I'm not so self-assured

Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors."

--Help!

But much more significantly, I wouldn't be who I am today if it were not for the influence of John Lennon's words and actions upon my life. Being who he was, his speaking out in opposition to the Vietnam War was the first voice in opposition that really caught my attention and helped lead to my life of activism and obsession with justice.

And, hey, you just have to look at me. Forty years after that Sunday at Pam's, twenty-five years after the dream of ever getting to see The Beatles onstage ended forever, thirty-five years after crying for an hour, at age fifteen, when Mom ordered me (once again) to get a haircut before the Sicilians came over for Thanksgiving dinner, my appearance is still ruled today by the long hair I longed to have after first seeing The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

"Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they

Tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe"

--Across the Universe

Thus, it is not surprising that I have read a good assortment of books about The Beatles.

"Will you ever look at him, sitting there wid his hooter scraping away at that book!"

--Paul's grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) in A Hard Day's Night

I picked up an advance reading copy of JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH at the beginning of Book Expo last week in New York City. I then stood quite contentedly on interminably long autographing lines all weekend, waiting to get signed books from the likes of Maurice Sendak, Barbara Boxer, Ben Saenz, and Carl Hiaasen. I waited contentedly, oblivious of my surroundings, because I had my face buried in a bloomin' book.

In fact, Elizabeth Partridge has written the definitive book on the life of John Lennon. And I don't just mean just the definitive "book for teens," even though it is absolutely a YA with it's in-depth look at John's adolescence, its multitude of uncensored quotes from the Fab Four, and it's consistently honest look at the sex and drugs (not to mention the rock and roll). Partridge reveals the intimate stories of Lennon and McCartney, the early Beatles, and Yoko without glossing over any of the multitude of warts.

"Ah, people asking questions, lost in confusion

Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions."

--Watching the Wheels

And then there are the photos.

The evening after returning from New York, Shari and I met with one of our Best Books for Young Adults teen groups in their school library. I walked over to the shelves, located a copy of RESTLESS SPIRIT: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DOROTHEA LANGE, explained Elizabeth Partridge's connection to the famed photographer, and pointed out that Partridge was obviously going to insure that the photos in the biographies she wrote would be both excellent photos and perfectly reproduced photos.

(If I weren't already confident of that, Partridge's publisher teased me a couple of months ago by mailing me a "partial blad showing selected pages" that reveals the oversized dimensions and the gorgeous photos that are literally suitable for framing.)

JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH will henceforth serve as my Exhibit #1 on why YALSA should get to work on creating an informational book award to parallel ALSC's Sibert Medal.

"So long ago

Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?

I know, yes I know

Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me."

--#9 Dream

When I revealed to those BBYA teens on Monday night who the subject of Partridge's new biography was, they let out a spontaneous cheer. You may think I'm a dreamer, but as I gazed out at those young, enthusiastic faces I could imagine the potential of the sixties, which Lennon was such a pivotal force in creating, carrying forth and coming to fruition through this younger generation.

Within its beautiful package, JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH provides the seeds, the instructions, and the cautionary statements for enacting that change.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com