In 1980, at the relatively tender age of 24, David Sheff landed a journalistic coup in the form of a multipart interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The famous couple had just ended a period of self-imposed retirement and were releasing their first new album of original material in five years. Sheff’s interview proved to be a masterstroke. In one of its most significant aspects, the interview involved a lengthy analysis of Lennon’s recorded output. Within a matter of weeks, Lennon would be murdered. Quite suddenly, Sheff’s interview with the Lennons became the lasting word on the musician’s illustrious career.
In the process—particularly in the weeks after her husband’s harrowing death—Ono and Sheff became friends. When it came to telling Ono’s story, Sheff found himself at loggerheads over the ethics of authoring her biography. “Just as my friendship with Yoko allowed invaluable access and insights,” he wrote, “it forced me to face a difficult and critical question: Can a journalist tell the truth about a friend? I wasn’t interested in presenting a whitewashed version of Yoko’s story—a friend’s filtered idealization.”
