Bob Spitz’s book, “The Beatles: The Biography,” about arguably the most influential pop band in history, has little in common with the chatty, often irritating chronicles so typical of the celebrity genre.
In its scope, structure and sheer length, this meaty, 983-page true-life epic unfolds as a sort of Beatles’ “War and Peace.”
The book begins with the O’Leannains and McCartneys fleeing famine-ravaged Ireland for Liverpool, England, where they and other Irish immigrant clans would eventually beget John, Paul, George and Ringo.
“Like many seaside boys,” Spitz writes, setting the scene in the first chapter, “the four young men who would form the Beatles were absurdly modest – ‘to be the best band in Liverpool’ was all they ever wanted.”
The way Spitz describes the confluence of events that led 15-year-old McCartney to move into Lennon’s neighborhood in 1957 might have come across as hokey in the hands of a lesser writer.
“If John awakening to rock ‘n roll … was a prelude of what was to come,” Spitz writes, then “the arrival of the boy across the street commenced the first act of the legend. His name, of course, was Paul.”
Most readers will go into the book knowing the broad outlines of the Beatles’ story, so it seems unlikely Spitz could get you to keep turning pages with much enthusiasm.
But he does.
His genius is how he stitches together available Beatles knowledge with the artistry of a fine novelist. He weaves a riveting narrative that, despite all readers know in advance, manages to create suspense.
When he describes how club-wielding mobs close in on the Beatles while on tour in the Philippines, you know they’ll escape. But Spitz conjures up the dangers so vividly you start to wonder if they’ll survive to the end of the chapter.
He also recounts how a flight the Beatles were on virtually crash-lands onto the runway, Lennon panicking in the minutes before the harrowing descent. On the ground, as passengers prepare to depart, he regains his composure – and characteristic wit. Spitz writes:
“When the thrum of turboprops ground to a halt, there was a long anxious silence broken by the sound of a seat back groaning as John sprang to his feet. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he announced: ‘Beatles, women and children first!’”
The detail Spitz draws upon is uncanny and, at times, deeply moving.
There’s the point when McCartney’s mother Mary, dying from cancer, writhes in pain, “sobbing, a silver crucifix clutched tightly in her fist” before saying goodbye to Paul, then 14.
And when Lennon meets McCartney – the two circling each other like alley cats – Spitz writes that “their interest in each other was deeper and more complex than it appeared to anyone watching” and that “for all the circling, posturing, and checking out that went on, what it all came down to was love at first sight.”
It is the first half of the book that shines brightest as Spitz tells how – partly by luck and partly by raw talent, but mostly by hard work – the Beatles emerge from obscurity to achieve world fame.
In later chapters, “The Beatles” loses some steam.
Spitz occasionally devotes too much space to analyzing Beatles songs, which, however interesting, breaks the rhythm of the narrative, and the story drags.
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that the latter chapters aren’t as engaging, devoted as they necessarily are to the band’s breakup and Lennon’s divisive wife Yoko Ono, who irks the other Beatles by offering unsolicited advice during recording sessions that, “rattled off in a flat, terse delivery, grated like fingernails on a chalkboard.”
To be fair, an account of how a band that created such great music split up – possibly with some of their best work left undone – might not read well under the best of circumstances.
Spitz’s heart just doesn’t seem to be into writing about the Beatles’ demise as it clearly was in describing their eventful, beautiful rise – and it shows.
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