The Beatles' Shadow: Stuart Sutcliffe and His Lonely Hearts Club

Rating:
Summary: "The Beatles' Shadow"
Review: I became interested in Sutcliffe several years ago when some documentary on PBS was aired, around the time Backbeat was in theatres. His art, his looks, immediately captivated me, and I had wanted to learn more about him. There weren't any books, and the only way you could read about him was through Beatles books rather than a stand-alone, and I wasn't interested in that. So, my interest in Sutcliffe's life fell to the backburner. Until recently, when I saw this book was going to be published in paperback.

Written by his sister, it's advertised as a biography, but is clearly a memoir. To me, a biography is researched extensively with quotes from letters, interviews from friends and associates and whatnot. Not rememberances of how cool it was to have a Teddy boy ask you to dance at one of your brother's early gigs in Liverpool.

That's problem number one with the book. Problem number two is apparently Pauline Sutcliffe is a psychotherapist who is smitten with analyzing her brother and John's life based on 40 year old memories, clearly prejudiced by time and death. And to make it worse, she's Freudian. Witness this line she wrote about her brother's relationship (she, as well as other biographers, assume that there was a sexual relationship between John and Stuart):

"The origins of male homosexuality are supposed to be tied up with the relationship between boys and their fathers. Or the failure of that relationship in some way, or the boys picking up some ambivalence in their fathers and all sorts of messages. I am not convinced about such theories, but let's characterize John as a boy looking for a father's love.[...]"

Here's what I knew about Stu before reading this book:
- he gave the Beatles their name and look
- he was a talented artist
- he was friends with John
- he met a blonde German girl
- he died too young

After reading this book, here's what I knew about Stu:
- he was a momma's boy
- he gave the Beatles their name and look
- he was a talented artist
- he was friends with John
- he met a blonde German girl
- he died too young

One day, I hope, a talented biographer will pen an excellent biography about this interesting fellow. Unfortunately this book is nowhere near that goal.