Yoko: The Biography

Sheff (The Buddhist on Death Row) illuminates the fascinating but complex life and character of experimental musician, performance/conceptual artist, and political activist Ono. Drawing on material from Sheff’s many lengthy interviews with Ono, her husband John Lennon, and her friends and family, the book begins with Ono’s wealthy but lonely and depressed childhood with her emotionally distant parents. Sheff shows the early artistic growth of Ono with such conceptual breakthroughs as 1964’s Cut Piece and Bag Piece and avant-garde films like 1966’s Bottoms. He highlights Ono meeting Lennon in 1966 and the tumultuous love affair and marriage that followed, plus their political performance art, cowriting the blockbuster song “Imagine,” their separation and reunion, and household bliss in New York, where Ono attended to business and Lennon reared their son Sean. In the last third of the book, Sheff describes Ono’s life after Lennon’s murder in 1980, including death threats, an increasing reliance on astrology and mystics, her musical recording output, a relationship with interior designer Sam Havadtoy, and her efforts to keep Lennon’s memory alive.