A look at one of the most famous marriages in the history of rock music chronicles the life of the successful photographer who married a Beatle, discussing her initial rejection by the public and her death from cancer. Fields, a noted rock manager and journalist, offers chatty reminiscences about his late friend Linda McCartney. The story begins with her childhood in a New York, upper-middle-class family headed by entertainment lawyer Lee Eastman. Then Fields breezes through his first meeting with Linda in 1966, her work as a rock photographer, and her various brushes with such icons as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Tim Buckley. The extended courtship and marriage of Linda and Beatle Paul McCartney, Linda's effect on the Beatles, her brief stardom as a member of Wings, and her subsequent post-rock life with Paul until her untimely death in 1998 are also covered. Although Fields treats Linda as her own person--not just a wife of a Beatle--this book will mainly appeal to diehard Beatlemaniacs. However readable, engaging, and heartfelt, Fields's biography degenerates into a series of personalized vignettes that contributes little to the understanding of rock music in the 1960s or the Beatles themselves. A marginal purchase. -Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. "I wish I didn't have to write this book" is the first sentence of Fields' "portrait" of the late photographer-singer wife of Paul McCartney. Fields means that he wishes she were still alive and no fit subject for such a book. It doesn't take much reading of it to join him in his wish. Oh, he cautions that he knows the book isn't "an ultimate `biography'." But he doesn't warn us that it reflects him and his inadequacies as a writer far more than it does Linda McCartney. Not having gathered evidence like a real biographer, or reporter, for that matter, Fields relies on taped and previously published testimony to back up his own memories as an authentic enough friend of Linda's--he met her in 1966 in New York when both were assigned to dog the Rolling Stones on their first performance tour. Whenever his memories let him down, he pads his prose with sentimental gushing about the '60s and the glamorous world of rock 'n' roll. Ever name-dropping and fatuous, he yet exhibits endearing loyalty to Linda, defending her against all attackers and slighters and puffing up her photographic and musical accomplishments. But, finally, this is an ignorant, gauche, and embarrassing book, a sort of grossly overwritten fan-magazine sob story. Don't underestimate, however, the readership for such stuff. Ray Olson Danny Fields has been a presence on the pop-culture scene since 1966. A native New Yorker, his first job was as managing editor of Datebook magazine, which featured extensive coverage of The Beatles. He has been a (visibly quotable) rock insider as a journalist, photographer, manager, (of the Ramones and Iggy Pop), and producer of syndicated radio shows ever since. His gigs included stints at Elektra Records, Atlantic Records, 16 magazine, and MJI Broadcasting. Danny is on the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he co-authored Dream On and Who's Your Fave Rave