Sutcliffe claims to have kept quiet about what she knew for years “out of an old-fashioned sense of propriety.”...
Was Stuart Sutcliffe John Lennon's lover? Did Lennon inadvertently cause his death of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 21? Speculations abound in this biography by the subject’s sister.
Sutcliffe may have given the band its name (the Beetles, after an all-woman biker group in the movie The Wild One, later changed to the Beatles by Lennon), their haircuts, and their groovy duds, but his bass-playing wasn't up to snuff, and he had to leave the band. If Pauline Sutcliffe harbors any resentment that her brother missed the boat, she hides it well enough; Stuart, she declares, was above all that, a genius with a “fabulously promising artistic career” as a painter. He met Lennon in art school, and they became friends, close complements to each other. Here we arrive at the first crux in Pauline's story: “I have known in my heart for many years that Stuart and John had a sexual relationship.” She feints (“it was a lovely happening: two lost boys who needed and found one another”) and is quick to quip (“Stuart performed oral sex on John Lennon? I would have thought it was the other way around”), but then comes the kicker . . . literally. During a dust-up between the friends, Pauline tells us, “Stuart said John kicked him in the head, and I'm convinced that kick was what eventually led to Stuart's death.” That's the kind of comment that might sit more comfortably with more evidence, but there is none. By the author’s own account, these guys fought all the time—Paul and Stuart once went at it on stage—and the accusation is too neat a capstone on her theme that John led Stuart down the road to ruin.
Sutcliffe claims to have kept quiet about what she knew for years “out of an old-fashioned sense of propriety.” Old-fashioned or not, that sense of propriety would have been a lot more attractive than this round of mud-slinging.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-330-48996-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Pan UK/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
An absorbing study of the role of style and design in early postwar American culture. Marling (Art History and American Studies/ Univ. of Minnesota; coauthor of Iwo Jima: Monuments and the American Hero, 1991) examines the period when TV first leveled its electronic gaze at American life and a dynamic new set of visual and cultural values were born. She describes leisure pursuits like amateur painting— and its ghastly derivative, the paint-by-numbers set—that rose with the country's self-conscious new prosperity; the growth of automobile fetishism; kitchen gadgets and their meaning for ever- busier women; Elvis's nouveau-riche stylistic pretensions; and national unease over the comparative worth of less frivolous Soviet accomplishments. The book begins slowly, detailing the national obsession with Mamie Eisenhower's hair and clothing, but gathers momentum in describing Disneyland's antecedents, the psychosexual lure of chrome-laden cars, and the growing hegemony of design over function in the development of American products. Marling writes with flair, and her text engages the reader even when profound insight is lacking. Readers may disagree with her on occasion (that ``the French [fashion] salon is a woman's place, ultimately governed by her preferences and skills'' seems debatable). And sometimes the breezy tone is less appropriate—memoranda showing how Betty Crocker psychologists exploited women's fears of failure in the kitchen arouse no comment from the author. Assertions that designers provided buyers a sensation of mobility and choice, and that these aren't bad aims, on the other hand, make sense. And Marling's right in noting that critics often missed what was pleasurable—and anti-elitist—about ``populuxe'' fashions of the '50s. Though Marling chooses to remain more chronicler than critic, this archaeology of our recent visual past is as important as any recent political history of the period, and far fresher in approach. (Illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-674-04882-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
An ideal pathfinder on the Beatles' long and winding road from moptops to magi—insightful, informative, contentious, and as ambitious and surprising as its heroes. Popular music criticism is often a thankless task, falling uneasily between mindless hype and lugubrious academicism. MacDonald, former deputy editor of New Musical Express, adroitly bridges that gap, taking the factual chassis—recording session data, itineraries, etc.—laboriously assembled by Beatlemaniacs like Mark Lewisohn and bringing to bear a fan's enthusiasm, a musicologist's trained ear, and a critic's discernment to produce the most rigorous and reliable assessment of the Beatles' artistic achievement to date. Advancing chronologically through the songs, MacDonald provides an encyclopedic wealth of biographical, musical, and historical detail, yet always keeps his eyes on the prize—the uniquely rich elixir the group distilled from these disparate elements. He considers the Beatles on their own musical and cultural terms, taking his cue from contemporary influences (rhythm-and-blues, soul, and the supercharged social crucible of the '60s), rather than straining for highbrow parallels in Schoenberg or Schubert—you'll find no reference to the infamous ``Aeolian cadences'' of ``This Boy'' here. MacDonald makes no bones about his own critical convictions: He prefers the artful structures of pop, its ``energetic topicality'' that ``captures a mood or style in a condensed instant,'' to rock's ``dull grandiosity,'' a shift he attributes to a general retreat since the '60s away from depth and craftsmanship into spectacle and sensation. Accordingly, he champions the pop classicism of the Beatles' early-middle period, culminating in Revolver and Sgt. Pepper, and in his most memorably acerbic passages deplores the rockist leanings of their later work: ``Helter Skelter,'' for instance, is dismissed as ``ridiculous, McCartney shrieking weedily against a backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing.'' The ultimate Beatles Bible? Certainly a labor of love, and all the more valuable for holding the Fabs to the highest critical standards.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8050-2780-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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