Book of the Week

THE NEW YORK TIMES

by Elisabeth Egan

“Yoko,” by David Sheff

“The Lennon/Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko’s part has been hidden in the band’s formidable shadow and further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism,” writes David Sheff in his compassionate, just-this-side-of-authorized biography of Yoko Ono. Not only does he stare down the myths that landed the woman known as John Lennon’s wife in the cross hairs of conspiracy theorists, he gives Ono her due as an artist, musician, peacemaker and revolutionary in her own right. And Sheff — who’s best known for “Beautiful Boy,” a memoir of his son’s drug addiction — is well qualified to do so, if biased in ways he acknowledges: In September 1980, he spent almost three weeks with Lennon and Ono, interviewing them for an article that appeared in Playboy the week Lennon died. He later became friends with Ono. “I didn’t varnish the truth to depict Yoko as either a saint or a sinner,” Sheff writes. “Instead, I did my best to strip the varnish away.” The result is a time capsule from another era, and a thoughtful look at a determined woman who tried to make it better.