Paul McCartney: The Life

Seven years after his comprehensive John Lennon biography, veteran music journalist Norman offers a similarly well-balanced and richly detailed portrait of Lennon's songwriting partner and pop culture icon Paul McCartney (b. 1942). While this title is not technically an authorized biography, Norman was given access to a variety of McCartney's friends, musical partners, and family members, resulting in new insight into topics ranging from the musician's marriages and many other romantic relationships to the financial and emotional fallout from the Beatles' split to the sometimes startling contrast between McCartney's sunny public persona and personal strife. The volume's first half follows his life up to the Beatles' 1970 breakup, mostly rehashing ground covered equally well in other works. Yet the second, more interesting section features an abundance of new and little-known content focusing on McCartney's post-Beatles music career and family life up through his 2011 third wedding and recent founding of a Liverpool music school. There is much to savor in this well-written, wide-ranging chronicle; unfortunately, the author skims over McCartney's post-Beatles relationships with Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr and devotes far too many pages to the Heather Mills divorce scandal.