Lennon in America: 1971-1980, Based on the Lost Lennon Diaries

In an attempt to build the most ""human"" Lennon composite--libidinous, possibly bisexual, drug-addled, self-loathing and Yoko-controlled--Giuliano (Glass Onion, Two of Us, etc.) spent 16 years interviewing Beatles insiders, listening to rare audiotapes, amassing Lennon's personal correspondence and examining his much-talked-about unpublished diaries, of which Giuliano obtained a copy in 1983. ""Can you imagine,"" the longtime Beatles biographer gasps in his introduction, ""what it feels like to hold in your hand a document you know has the power to change the course of Beatles history completely and forever?"" After trumpeting a publishing revolution, he then warns readers that they ""will not find in this book the voice of John Lennon as quoted from his diaries."" Nor will they find paraphrases, because Lennon's entries ""were often incomplete thoughts and snippets--the exact meaning of which is difficult to discern."" If Giuliano's own double-talk isn't enough to diminish this work's credibility, his endless, voyeuristic descriptions of Lennon's sexual encounters are. Giuliano believes that Lennon's mother, Julia, who allegedly placed her son's hand on her breast when he was 14 years old, is to blame for his hero's idiosyncrasies. At first Giuliano's intentions to give Lennon admirers ""some truth"" seem earnest, but in the end it seems that he seeks only to shock. ""It's very unhealthy to live through anybody,"" Lennon said after Elvis's death, but Giuliano keeps trying to worm his way into Lennon's soul in this crude, predictable exhumation. 70 b&w photos not seen by PW. (May)