Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

By Howard Sounces

Four out of Five Stars

I’ve pretty much been a lifelong Beatles fan; a fan that has also grown to appreciate the music John, Paul, George and Ringo (yes, Ringo) made as solo artists. I’ve read a lot of books on the Beatles, and have several lined up to read in the future. It’s a compulsion, as, despite the fact the story never changes, and I know it so well, I still continue to read the books. Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney, at least allowed me to not only read about his Beatle years, but also his solo career, which I haven’t thoroughly explored – so at least, I knew there’d be something different here.

Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney by Howard Sounes, was a solid read – one I enjoyed. The trick to writing a book about a Beatle these days, is to say your book offers new insights, but based on the amount that has been written about them, these new insights are often negligible. Fab is no different in this regard, and those insights were not that exciting, at least for me. I have to remember though, if you’re just starting to explore the world of the Beatles, everything in this book is new, and as such, interesting.

Howard Sounes is an excellent writer, with an easy-going style. He reports on aspects of Paul’s life, without falling into the trap some writers do when writing about musicians, of over-analyzing their musical work. He does comment on the songs and their strengths, and I do agree with him that lacking John Lennon’s contribution, a lot of Paul’s work with Wings, and as a solo artist, didn’t have the same impact. In fairness to Paul, however, we can say the same for John’s work; the two seemed to counter balance one another beautifully. That’s not to take away from moments of brilliance in song writing – it’s just when you look at that brilliance over the ten years of the Beatles, the solo years seemed leaner.

The book did give me a new appreciation of Paul as a family man, and one can’t help feeling bad about his experiences with second wife Heather Mills, after a long and successful marriage with the Lovely Linda. Heather does not not come off well in the book; seeing as she recently criticized Paul after he worked with Kanye West, saying he was irrelevant, I tend to believe her character skews towards what Howard Sounes has written about her. Maybe it’s time she let go of the anger.

Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney is a great place for anyone to start, if they’re exploring the Beatles as both a band and solo artists; for those of us well entrenched in their lives, it’s still a solid read. Some may disagree; all I can say was I enjoyed the read, and in the long run, as a reader that’s all that really counts.