John Lennon Series: What is an Historical Narrative???

The John Lennon Series is an Historical Narrative

What is an Historical Narrative???

"It's a plane! It's a bird? NO...it's Superman!!!" Not since that iconic chant about Jerry Siegel's comic strip character has there been so much confusion about the nature of a literary creation! "What in the world," potential readers ask me, "is an historical narrative? Is it fan fiction? Historical fiction? A biography?" No, it's none of those things.

The historical narrative (as I wrote in the book, New Critical Perspectives on The Beatles: Things We Said Today) is a unique method of reporting the past -
a genre compiling the accounts of multiple observers, bystanders and witnesses to present a complete and true story from their various "facts," opinions, stories and details. Combining many voices into a single thread, the historical narrative offers readers a complete, fleshed-out account of a given moment in time. 

After intensive research and interviews with a plethora of primary and secondary resources, the author of an historical narrative (me, in this instance) tells the true story of a legendary person or persons. (In this case, it is the life of John Lennon and The Beatles)  The researcher/writer (me) is, therefore, committed to the dissolution of popular myths about that historical figure (John and the lads) with the goal of giving posterity a prejudice-free account of a great man or woman or an historical event. 

For the last 32 years, I have been researching the life of John Lennon with over 500 Lennon and Beatles books in my home. I have also traveled seven times to Liverpool and London to interview John's family (Julia Baird, Charlie Lennon), friends (Rod Murray, Helen Anderson, Johnny Guitar, Bill Harry), early Beatles (Pete Best, Chas Newby), business associates (Allan Williams, Bob Wooler, Rex Makin, Freda Kelly, Geoff Emerick, Richard Langham, Larry Kane, Ivor Davis, Fred Seaman, Dennis Ferrante), and so many others. I have studied audio tapes, CDs, DVDs, periodicals, newspaper articles, letters, journals, and every possible means available for obtaining information about John. And, I have spent countless hours studying his mannerisms, vocabulary, idiosyncrasies, and opinions. I have immersed myself in all things Lennon since 1986.

My quest is to examine every old assumption about John and - in light of facts old and new - to unfold his biography as it really occurred...telling it in narrative format so that the reader feels as if he or she is present when John buys his first "real" guitar from Hessey's or performs at the Royal Command Performance or meets Bob Dylan for the first time. Bill Harry called The John Lennon Series "factional." Steve Marinucci (Beatles Examiner) has pronounced the work "an expanded biography." The result of tireless research, the three existing volumes in The John Lennon Series will make the reader feel as if he or she is a fly on the wall as John's life unfolds. Furthermore, at the end of each chapter, the reader and I discuss together discrepancies in the historical record over the last 50 years. 

So, it is a story. A true story. A researched and documented story. A story with thousands of footnotes from hundreds of sources that presents the life of John Lennon in intricate detail! That is my historical narrative. That is The John Lennon Series.