“The John Lennon we did not know” —Today Show Book Club
“Lennon, ‘Revealed’ and remembered” —CNN.com
“As the only American journalist who traveled with the Beatles on their first U.S. tour and someone who had contact with John Lennon over many years, Kane (Ticket To Ride ) has plenty of insight into the complexities of Lennon's work and personality. Here, he deals with the thorny issues that have fascinated many other writers — primarily, the allegations that Lennon had a homosexual encounter with Stuart Sutcliffe, the original Beatles bassist, and then gave Sutcliffe a beating that led to his death of a brain hemorrhage. Kane suggests that both allegations are true, backing up his conclusions via interviews with more than 70 individuals, including Yoko Ono, Lennon's friends, and experts on the former Beatle. The result is a seemingly fair and balanced account of just who the man was and what he was about.“
“In brisk, entertaining prose, Kane, with a supporting cast of many Beatles associates, assesses the many faces of Lennon from a journalistic yet intensely personal perch. ‘Was John Lennon a mean bastard? A foolish prankster? An aggressive sex fiend? A musical tyrant? A gay man?’ The answers, Kane says, are as complex as Lennon himself. Kane shares his take on the man and the pivotal moments in his life, including Lennon's relationships with his bandmates and Yoko Ono, his involvement in the peace movement, and the infamous ‘lost weekend’ and the Yoko-ordained affair with secretary May Pang.readers should enjoy Kane's personal, honest recollections. ‘My reporting of Lennon and his adult life will no doubt vary from others,’ Kane aptly notes, ‘but it is mine.’”
“In Lennon Revealed, Larry Kane gently peers behind the walls of John Lennon's well-crafted image and produces surprising revelations and a refreshing perspective. Lennon's superstar status has been buried in so much myth and sensationalism over the last forty years that the basic truths of his life have been effectively lost. In this book, on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's tragic assassination, Kane begins to break down those myths and reveal John Lennon simply as a man…It will create a shift in perception about the flip side of who John was, his compassion and deep sensitivities. It's a positive, human approach that John himself would deeply appreciate.”
“With all that has been written about John Lennon over the past quarter century, how could there possibly be any new ground to explore? Larry Kane's book, Lennon Revealed shows that there are, indeed, aspects of Lennon's life that have not previously been dealt with in print…Kane's perspective is unique. In the style of the day, he approached the Beatles' tours as "hard news" in an era when journalists willingly kept the salacious secrets of celebrities, and paparazzi weren't running them off the road to get candid pictures. But Kane and Lennon developed a degree of mutual respect and admiration that gives the author unique insight, and opens doors that are closed to most of the rest of us…If your budget forces you to be selective about which of the many new Lennon books to buy, I recommend that this one be one of them. As Mark Hudson (of The Hudson Brothers and later Ringo Starr's producer) writes in the book's Foreword, ‘I only know one thing for sure: I loved John Lennon, and this book makes me love him more.’”
