John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth

a photographic biography by Elizabeth Partridge

FEBRUARY 7, 1964
The Beatles landed in New York--and nothing was ever the same for rock'n'roll.

Together, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were electrifying, funny, British, and so different. Each of the Beatles projected a strong individual identity, but John's persona especially captivated fans, who picked up on his uniquely introspective, dark, and bluesy approach to music--and to life.

Award-winning biographer Elizabeth Partridge dives into Lennon's life from the night he was born in 1940 during a World War II air raid on Liverpool, deftly taking us through his turbulent childhood and his rebellious rock 'n' roll teens to his celebrated life writing, recording, and performing music with the Beatles. She sheds light on the years after the Beatles, with Yoko Ono, as he struggled to make sense of his own artistic life--one that had turned from youthful angst to suffocating fame in almost a split second.

Partridge chronicles the emotional highs and paralyzing lows Lennon transformed into brilliant, evocative songs. With over 140 striking black-and-white photographs spanning his entire life, John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth is the unforgettable story of one of rock's biggest legends.

Elizabeth Partridge was thirteen years old when the Beatles landed in America. When they appeared in Candlestick Park, she and her best friend made sure they were there. After college, Partridge studied acupuncture in London, where her fantasy of the city was rooted in her love for the Beatles. "I remember being in a small shop in London and hearing an early Beatles song, 'Love Me Do' and just thinking, This is it!"

Though her big crush was always on George Harrison, it was John Lennon who had the most profound effect on her. She admired his sharp humor, his books, and his willingness to speak out politically. Swept up in the music and antiwar protests of the early seventies, she watched as Lennon shaped both. She admired John's feminist side, encouraged by Yoko, and saw him as the most complex and contradictory of the Beatles.

The award-winning author of numerous books for children, Elizabeth Partridge won the 2002 Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Award and was a National Book Award Finalist for This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Tom.