A Twist of Lennon

1978, 1980 Star Book edition
Cynthia Lennon
A Twist of Lennon
Original price $5.75 (CAN), purchase price $3.50 (AMER)
Slightly worn paperback
B

Although Lennon starts with a funny account of her pregnant mum's evacuation to Lancashire in the early days of WWII, the book focuses on her decade with first husband John.  The title is a play on two of her married names, since she was married to another John, John Twist, from '76 to '83.  In between there was a marriage to Roberto Bassanini, who's mentioned briefly towards the end.  John L. had the gall to threaten to sue Cynthia for adultery, when he was increasingly publicly carrying on with Yoko.  Cynthia claims nothing was going on with Bassanini at the time, but even if there were, how many groupies did John bed?

Still, Cynthia doesn't seem to have held a grudge, and claims she knew immediately (before John did) that Yoko was his soulmate.  After the divorce from Twist, she went back to Lennon as her last name, keeping it even during her present marriage, to Noel Charles.  She seems to have always adored John Lennon, always forgiven him.  Interestingly, she doesn't mention his violence towards her, although he was open about it, as in the song "Getting Better."  She also omits the Beatles' drug use in Hamburg.  Perhaps she was unaware of what life was like for the band while touring, and she does admit to being naive.  According to Wikipedia, in 2005 she "published a more intimate biography, John."  Perhaps by then it was easier to talk about the more personal things.  I'm not even sure if this edition was published before or after his death, although I don't think it was because there's no mention of his death even on the back cover blurb.

The book includes some kind of bad poetry, and some hit or miss illustrations, yet I found that they added to the charm of the (auto)biography, reinforcing respectively her sensitivity and sense of humour.  There's no question that she's a survivor, and I like that she tried to do the best by everyone, including son Julian, whom she raised almost single-handedly.  When John also threatened to take Julian away, I got really angry at him, because he'd spent almost no time with his son, as he later admitted.  Yet even this, Cynthia quickly forgave.

At 73, her identity seems to still be primarily as John's first wife, but considering what he put her through, she can herself be forgiven for that.