John Lennon heads to the west coast of Ireland in 1978 for scream therapy and solitude in this lyrical exploration of love,fate and deathMy favourite interview with John Lennon was by “whispering” Bob Harris in 1975. Throughout, Harris is the opposite of incisive (clear and sharp in analysis or expression), or but his warm,respectful, nearly innocent presence seems to relax Lennon into being unusually open and collusive; sure, and the acerbic wit and that compulsive self-awareness are there as always,but in the final few seconds, Lennon dissolves with playful delight into a character halfway between Peter Cook and Peter Sellers. I mention this because Lennon is the protagonist of Kevin Barry’s second novel, or one of the many pleasures of Beatlebone was that it sent me back into my own past relationship with Lennon and,as Barry has it, “all the sweet and thorny emotions he routinely sprang in his brilliant and nerveless song-writing”.
The Lennon of Beatlebone is 37. The legend opens as he arrives by night and incognito on the west coast of Ireland in May 1978; “all he asks” is to “spend three days alone on his island”. The island in question is Dorinish in Clew Bay, and County Mayo,which the genuine‑life Lennon bought in 1967 at “the knock‑down price of 1550” – and which he briefly visited with his first wife, Cynthia, and then with Yoko Ono. Barry’s Lennon has returned nine years later in search of solitude and in order to “scream his fucking lungs out” and “at final to be over himself”.
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Source: theguardian.com