Dear Sir or Madam will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
—“PAPERBACK WRITER,” THE BEATLES
For many years, I often thought that I would one day like to write a personal account of my relationship and friendship with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, whom I first met in London in September 1968. Forty-three years later—in 2011—I realized that it was now or never. And thanks to a number of extraordinary persons, I was given the opportunity to do so.
One afternoon over lunch, I explained to my literary agent, Steve Wasserman, that what I really wanted to do was to write a concise book from a solely personal perspective that would attempt to convey to the reader a sense of what it was like to have known and spent many memorable and spellbinding days and evenings with two of the most inspiring people I have ever met. So, as befitting such a book, Steve unusually suggested that, in lieu of a formal book proposal, I should simply write an informal letter to him saying exactly what I had told him, and that he would take it from there.
My “Dear Sir” letter fortunately found its way to Gerry Howard, the executive editor of Doubleday, who decided to chance it and edit the book himself. In their song “I Saw Her Standing There,” the Beatles described how they suddenly stopped in their tracks upon catching sight on the dance floor of a seventeen-year-old girl who looked “way beyond compare.” Little did I then know, but I was soon to discover, that I had been granted the opportunity to work with an editor who was himself “way beyond compare” and who had the uncommon ability to see hidden beneath the dross of a writer’s first draft some inchoate intimations of literary redemption. Without Gerry’s transformative editorial guidance it would not have been possible for me, for better or for worse, to complete Days That I’ll Remember.
But my book would also not have been possible without the assistance of a number of other people.
At Doubleday, I am especially indebted to Hannah Wood, as well as to Bette Alexander, Karla Eoff, Joe Gallagher, Kristen Gastler, Lorraine Hyland, and Emily Mahon.
For their invaluable help, I am inestimably grateful to Jonas Herbsman and, at Studio One, to Andrew Kachel, Amanda Keeley, and Karla Merrifield.
For allowing me to use their remarkable photographs, I want to thank Ethan Russell, who took the photos that accompanied my first Rolling Stone interview with John Lennon in 1968, and Allan Tannenbaum.
For their abiding generosity and support, I give heartfelt thanks to Annie Druyan, Elizabeth Garnsey, Richard Gere, and Jann Wenner.
And I would also like to express my appreciation to Sonny Mehta for his having introduced me and my book project to Gerry Howard.
A French proverb says: “Gratitude is the heart’s memory.” And I am profoundly grateful to Yoko Ono for her enheartening encouragement and for the unstinting cooperation that she so generously provided me, while giving me carte blanche to write the book that I had dreamed of writing. As anyone who reads Days That I’ll Remember will inescapably realize, I am, and have been for more than forty years, one of Yoko Ono’s most devoted and unwavering fans. To me—as well as to innumerable people around the world—her life and work stand as an inspiring testimony to the powers of affirmation, imagination, compassion, and courage. And I will forever be thankful both to her and to John Lennon for having allowed me to share some indelible moments with them in the days of their lives.