{"product_id":"john-isbn-9780307338563","title":"John","description":"Now in paperback, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling exposé of the real John Lennon \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe time has come when I feel ready to tell the truth about John and me, our years together and the years since his death. There is so much that I have never said, so many incidents I have never spoken of and so many feelings I have never expressed: great love on one hand; pain, torment, and humiliation on the other. Only I know what really happened between us, why we stayed together, why we parted, and the price I have paid for being John’s wife. \u003cb\u003e—From the Introduction\u003c\/b\u003e“Lennon’s eyewitness testimony vividly captures the time and place and the characters . . . her portrait of John is loving but candid.” —\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A welcome window into a period that’s typically narrated at breakneck pace, [providing] a gentle reminder that John Lennon was a human being . . . before he was a piece of history.” —\u003ci\u003eDetroit Free Press\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Cynthia Lennon’s] portrait reveals an immensely talented and driven man who was capable of great passion, affection, and loyalty, but whose inability to handle confrontation and tendency toward flight from painful realities led him to abandon his family when the going got tough.” —\u003ci\u003eBuffalo News\u003c\/i\u003eCynthia Lennon was born in Blackpool, England, in 1939. While attending the Liverpool College of Art she met John Lennon. John and Cynthia married in 1962 and their son, Julian, was born in 1963. The Lennons were divorced in 1969. Cynthia retained custody of Julian, who saw his father sporadically until John was killed in 1980. In the years since, Cynthia has been a restaurateur, a designer, and a television personality. She now lives in Spain with her husband, Noel Charles.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    One early December afternoon in 1980 my friend Angie and I were in the   little bistro we ran in north Wales, putting up the Christmas   decorations. It was a cold, dark afternoon, but the atmosphere inside   was bright and warm. We'd opened a bottle of wine and were hanging   baubles on the tree and festive pictures on the walls. Laughing, we   pulled a cracker and the toy inside fell onto the floor. I bent to pick   it up and shivered when I saw it was a small plastic gun. It seemed   horribly out of place among the tinsel and paper chains.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The next day I went to stay with my friend Mo Starkey in London. I   couldn't really spare the time during the busy pre-Christmas season,   but my lawyer had insisted I go to sign some legal papers, so I took   the train, planning to return the following day. I left my husband and   Angie to look after things in my absence. Angie was the ex-wife of Paul   McCartney's brother, Mike, and after her marriage broke up she'd come   to work for us, living in the small flat above the bistro.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was always good to see Mo. We'd been friends since 1962, when I was   John's girlfriend and she was the teenage fan who fell in love with   Ringo at the Cavern. Ringo and Mo had married eighteen months after us,   and in the days when the Beatles were traveling all over the world, she   and I had spent a lot of time together. Her oldest son, Zak, was   fifteen, a year and a half younger than my son Julian, and the boys had   always been playmates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When Mo and Ringo parted in 1974 she had been so heartbroken that she   got on a motorbike and drove it straight into a brick wall, badly   injuring herself. She had been in love with him since she was fifteen   and his public appearances with his new girlfriend, American actress   Nancy Andrews, had devastated her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After the split Mo, still only twenty-seven, had moved into a house in   the London neighborhood Maida Vale with her three children, Zak, eight,   Jason, six, and Lee, three. Because of the injuries she'd received in   the motorbike accident she had plastic surgery on her face and was   delighted with the result, which she felt made her look better than she   had before. Gradually she'd begun to get over Ringo, and she had a   brief fling with George Harrison before she began to see Isaac Tigrett,   millionaire owner of the Hard Rock Café chain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The evening I arrived Mo had her usual houseful of people. Her mother,   Flo, lived with her, as well as the children and their nanny. Mo always   had an open house and that evening some old friends of ours, Jill and   Dale Newton, had joined us for dinner. The nanny had cooked a huge   meal, and later, Jill and Dale, Maureen and I sat over a couple of   bottles of wine and talked about old times. After a while the   conversation turned to the death of Mal Evans, the Beatles' former road   manager. Mal had been a giant of a man, generous and soft-hearted. We'd   known him since the early days when he'd worked for the post office and   moonlighted as a bouncer at the Cavern Club. When the Beatles began to   be successful they took him on to work for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mal had been a faithful friend to the boys and was especially close to   John: they got on incredibly well and, with the Beatles' other loyal   roadie, Neil Aspinall, he had been on every tour, organizing,   trouble-shooting, protecting and looking after them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When the Beatles broke up Mal had been lost. He'd gone to live in Los   Angeles where he began drinking and taking drugs. It was there, on   January 4, 1976, that the police had been called by his girlfriend   during a row. She claimed that Mal had pulled a gun on her, and when   they burst into the apartment the officers found Mal holding a gun.   Apparently he pointed it at them before they shot him. It was only   after he died that they found the gun wasn't loaded. It was a tragic   story, and we could only imagine that Mal had been under the influence   of drugs. The Mal we knew could no more have shot someone than flown to   the moon. Whatever the true story, his death had shocked us all and   that night, our talk around Mo's fireplace was of what a good man he   had been and how awful his premature death was. To us, the idea of   being shot was almost unimaginable-how could it have happened to such a   good friend?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After a while I went to bed. I knew the others would carry on talking   and drinking until the early hours, but I wanted a good night's sleep   as I had to get up early in the morning to catch the train home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I was asleep in the spare room when screams woke me. It took me a few   seconds to realize that they were Mo's. At that moment she burst into   my room: \"Cyn, John's been shot. Ringo's on the phone-he wants to talk   to you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I don't remember getting out of bed and going down the stairs to the   phone. But Ringo's words, the sound of his tearful voice crackling over   the transatlantic line, was crystal clear: \"Cyn, I'm so sorry, John's   dead.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The shock engulfed me like a wave. I heard a raw, tearing sob and, with   that strange detachment that sudden shock can trigger, realized I was   making the noise. Mo took the phone, said good-bye to Ringo, then put   her arms around me. \"I'm so sorry, Cyn,\" she sobbed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In my stunned state I had only one clear thought. My son-our son-was at   home in bed: I had to get back so that I could tell him about his   father's death. He was seventeen and history was repeating itself in a   hideous way: both John and I had lost a parent at that age.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I rang my husband and told him I was on the way and not to tell Julian   what had happened. My marriage-the third-had been strained for some   time and, in my heart of hearts, I knew it was going to end, but he was   supportive. \"Of course,\" he said. \"I'll do my best to keep it from   him.\" By the time I was dressed and had gathered my things, Mo had   organized a car and a driver to take me to Wales. She insisted on   coming too, with Zak. \"I'll bring Julian back to stay with us if he   needs to get away from the press,\" she promised.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    John had been shot in New York at 10:50 p.m. on December 8. The time   difference meant it was 3:50 a.m. on December 9 in Britain. Ringo had   rung us barely two hours after it had happened, and we were on the road   by seven. It was a four-hour drive to north Wales, and during the   journey I stared out of the window in the gray dawn and thought of   John.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the jumble of thoughts whirring around my mind two kept recurring.   The first was that nine had always been a significant number for John.   He was born on October 9 and so was his second son, Sean. His mother   had lived at number 9; when we met my house number had been 18 (the two   digits of which add up to 9) and the hospital address Julian was born   in was number 126 (again, each digit adds up to 9). Brian Epstein had   first heard the Beatles play on the ninth of the month, they had got   their first record contract on the ninth and John had met Yoko on the   ninth. The number had cropped up in John's life in numerous other ways,   so much so that he wrote three songs around it-\"One After 909,\"   \"Revolution 9\" and \"#9 Dream.\" Now he had died on the ninth-an   astonishing coincidence by any reckoning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My second thought was that for the past fourteen years John had lived   with the fear that he would be shot. In 1966 he'd received a letter   from a psychic, warning that he would be shot while he was in the   States. We were both upset by that: the Beatles were about to do their   last tour of the States and, of course, we thought the warning referred   to that trip. He had just made his infamous remark about the Beatles   being more popular than Christ and the world was in an uproar about   it-crank letters and warnings arrived by every post. But that one had   stuck in his mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Afraid as he was, he went on the tour, and apologized reluctantly for   the remark. When he got home in one piece we were both relieved. But   the psychic's warning remained in his mind and from then on it seemed   that he was looking over his shoulder, waiting for the gunman to   appear. He often used to say, \"I'll be shot one day.\" Now,   unbelievably, tragically, he had been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We reached Ruthin by mid-morning, and as we rounded the corner into   what was normally a sleepy little town, my heart sank. There was no way   that my husband could have kept the news from Julian: the town was   packed with press. Dozens of photographers and reporters filled the   square, the streets to our house and the bistro.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Amazingly we managed to park a few streets away and slip in through the   back door, without being spotted by the crowd at the front. Inside my   husband was pacing up and down restlessly. My mother, who lived above   the bistro with Angie, was peering anxiously at the crowd from behind a   drawn curtain. She was seventy-seven and suffering from the early   stages of Alzheimer's. Confused by the crowds outside, she had no idea   what was going on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I looked at my husband, the question unspoken. Did Julian know? He   nodded toward the stairs. A minute later Julian came running down. I   held out my arms to him. He came over to me and his lanky teenage frame   crumpled into my lap. He wrapped his arms around my neck and sobbed   onto my shoulder. I hugged him and we cried together, both heartbroken   at the awful, pointless waste that his father's death represented.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mo had busied herself making tea, while Zak sat quietly nearby, not   knowing what to say or do. While we drank the tea we talked about what   to do. Maureen offered to take Julian back to London, but he said, \"I   want to go to New York, Mum. I want to be where Dad was.\" Although the   idea alarmed me, I understood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Maureen and Zak hugged us and left, then Julian and I went up to the   bedroom to ring Yoko. We were put straight through to her, and she   agreed that she would like Julian to join her. She said she would   organize a flight for him that afternoon. I told her I was worried   about the state he was in, but Yoko made it clear that I was not\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    welcome. \"It's not as though you're an old schoolfriend of mine,   Cynthia.\" It was blunt, but I accepted it: there is no place for an   ex-wife in public grieving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A couple of hours later my husband and I drove Julian to Manchester   airport. The press spotted us as we left home, but when they saw our   faces they drew back and let us pass. I was grateful. We sat through   the two-hour drive in virtual silence. I was exhausted by the depth of   my emotions and by the need to hold back my pain and attend to the   necessary practicalities, for Julian's sake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the airport I watched him being led off by a flight attendant, his   shoulders bowed, his face chalk white. I knew he would sit on the plane   surrounded by people reading newspapers with headlines about his   father's death splashed across their front pages and I longed to run   after him. Before he disappeared through the gate he turned back and   waved. He looked painfully young and I ached at having to let him go.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Back in Wales the press was still camped outside our door in huge   numbers-there wasn't a spare room left in town. Years later, when she   was hosting the British talk show This Morning, Judy Finnegan told me   that she had been a young reporter among that throng. \"I felt for you,\"   she told me. \"You looked absolutely shattered.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I was furious when my husband let one of the more persuasive   journalists, a man who said he was writing a book about John, into our   home. Later he claimed that I gave him a lengthy interview, but in fact   I said just a few words, then asked him to leave. I was in no state and   no mood to give an interview. I fell into bed and lay, numb and   exhausted, too wrung out for any more tears, trying to take in the   enormity of what had happened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That night, after I drifted into a shallow sleep, there was a terrible   crash. I leapt up, screaming-it was as though a bomb had gone off. I   ran outside in my nightdress and saw that the chimney pot on our roof   had crashed through the ceiling into Julian's attic bedroom. A high   wind had blown up, as if from nowhere. It seemed ominous and I thanked   God that Julian hadn't been there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The next day Julian rang to tell me he had arrived safely and was in   the Dakota apartment with Yoko, Sean and various members of staff.   Hundreds of people were camped outside the building, but Sean didn't   yet know of John's death so those inside were trying to keep up the   pretense of normality until Yoko felt ready to tell him. Julian sounded   tired, but he said that John's assistant, Fred Seaman, had met him at   the airport and had been very kind to him. It was a relief to know that   someone was looking out for my son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In Wales, life had to go on. We couldn't afford to close the bistro and   John and Angie couldn't manage in the busy season without me, so we   opened for business. I cleaned, cooked, served customers and looked   after my mother, all the while feeling numb and disconnected. While I   got on with the business of life I had to contain my grief, but as   headlines about John continued to dominate the news and his music   soared up the charts, memories of him, our life together and all we had   shared played constantly through my mind. The many hundreds of sympathy   cards and messages I received from those who had known John, and those   who had simply loved the man and his music, helped. But as I struggled   through a disjointed, empty couple of weeks in the lead-up to   Christmas, with my son away and my marriage on the rocks, I felt   overwhelmed with sadness, frustration and loss. How could the man I had   loved for so long and with such fierce, passionate intensity be gone?   How could his vibrant life energy and his unique creativity have been   snuffed out by a madman's bullet? And how could he have left his two   sons without a father when they both needed him so much?","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302895800549,"sku":"NP9780307338563","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307338563.jpg?v=1767730445","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/john-isbn-9780307338563","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}