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The Death and Life of Mal Evans
Former Beatle assistant Mal Evans lies in a Los Angeles apartment in January 1976, dying of a gunshot wound. His life has spiraled downward since his beloved band broke up in 1970. And throughout those six years, as he fell further into despair, he had always asked himself:
What if? What if he could have done something to keep the Beatles, and his life, together?
Instead of dying, Mal finds himself transported back to 1969. The war in Vietnam is coming to a boil, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is in theaters, and the Beatles are still together. He has an opportunity to right the wrongs that ripped apart the world's greatest band.
And while he succeeds in keeping the band together, helping to create new Beatles albums for the world to hear ("Imagine" and "Live and Let Die" are Beatles songs!), he finds that fate is plotting to reverse his world. Paul McCartney and John Lennon quarrel constantly; George Harrison is consumed by self-doubt; Ringo Starr has trouble living up to the Beatle name. And Mal, in the middle of it all, must work to keep the fantasy alive, trying to avoid the same mistakes he made the first time while avoiding the grasp of Death, which continues to pursue him in his new life.
Comparable to Stephen King's 11/22/63 in its tromp through time and emphasis on fate vs. free will, The Death and Life of Mal Evans is a fast-paced book that will also leave you wondering, what if?
What if? What if he could have done something to keep the Beatles, and his life, together?
Instead of dying, Mal finds himself transported back to 1969. The war in Vietnam is coming to a boil, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is in theaters, and the Beatles are still together. He has an opportunity to right the wrongs that ripped apart the world's greatest band.
And while he succeeds in keeping the band together, helping to create new Beatles albums for the world to hear ("Imagine" and "Live and Let Die" are Beatles songs!), he finds that fate is plotting to reverse his world. Paul McCartney and John Lennon quarrel constantly; George Harrison is consumed by self-doubt; Ringo Starr has trouble living up to the Beatle name. And Mal, in the middle of it all, must work to keep the fantasy alive, trying to avoid the same mistakes he made the first time while avoiding the grasp of Death, which continues to pursue him in his new life.
Comparable to Stephen King's 11/22/63 in its tromp through time and emphasis on fate vs. free will, The Death and Life of Mal Evans is a fast-paced book that will also leave you wondering, what if?
298 pages, Paperback
First published August 26, 2015
11 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
About the author
Peter Lee
2 books7 followersThe Death and Life of Mal Evans, was the product of his love and appreciation for the group and took more than ten years to write. His newest book, Spectacular Bid: The Last Superhorse of the Twentieth Century," is set to be published by the University Press of Kentucky on September 2, 2019.
A former journalist, Lee is a contributing writer to Hooks and Harmony, which has been in publication since 2008.
A former journalist, Lee is a contributing writer to Hooks and Harmony, which has been in publication since 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 5, 2015
This is the ultimate in fan fiction/alternative history if you are a fans of the Beatles (and who isn't?). Peter Lee creates an alternate universe where the Beatles survive through the 70s and continue making music, as told from the viewpoint of their assistant, Mal Evans. With a few twists and turns along the way, Lee creates a new world where the Beatles are able to collaborate on their respective real-life solo projects and create new Beatles albums that outshine even their most beloved albums from the 60s.
Great stuff, and highly recommended!
Great stuff, and highly recommended!
November 24, 2015
This was a free giveaway book but I probably would have bought it anyway as I am a Beatles fan and I often ask "what if" questions about if things had gone different in the early 70's for the once fab four. Author Peter Lee is a self-professed fan himself and didn't just ask "what if", he spent 10 years writing a novel that centers on the real-life tragic death of Beatles road manager/assistant Mal Evans in 1976 by a fatal gunshot wound inflicted by a police officer. Lee allows Evans to try things all over again by traveling back to 1969 try to keep the The Beatles and his family together. New journeys and events occur, but does Evans make the changes he wants with this second chance? Lee is a good writer and because of his obvious knowledge of The Beatles, their talent, personalities and shortcomings, he can spin a believable alternate outcome. My only complaint is Lee sometimes explains things that occurred in real life a little too much; let events that people know about from Beatles history weave into the story from Mel's perspective, not as someone who may or may not know about certain events.
November 16, 2017
I've read Peter's music blog for years and I have always enjoyed his perspective and taste. When I saw that he had written a fan-fiction novel about the possibility of the Beatles staying together I knew I had to read it. I really enjoyed the novel and if anything I just wanted more. It was a fun, enjoyable, and quick read. This book fulfills the fantasy every audiophile (that I’ve ever known) has when they wonder what it would be like if a beloved band had stayed together longer. What would it take to keep a favorite group together just long enough to add another album or two to our collection. My only qualm was the personal relationship with the main character and his immediate family taking a backseat to his relationship with the Liverpudlians. This is not really a criticism of the author, but the flawed nature of the individual character. This is recommended reading for any fan of the Beatles who wants just a few more days with the quartet together.
October 22, 2015
I was given a copy of this book to review, and was really excited about it. The premise is looking back at the life of one of The Beatles' roadies, if he could go back in time and change things would The Beatles have stayed together. The book is really well researched and even has a timeline and possible discographies of the fictional albums that could have been. Most of the content is songs that would have been in solo projects and such. The whole book is a love letter to The Beatles and their fans, and it's easy to get sucked in and go right along for the ride. While there are are fights, and other things that trip up the band in the end there's a better vision of how it could have been thanks to a roadie who poured his life into the belief that The Beatles were at their best together.
September 22, 2015
This book is great! Carefully researched and written, this what-if novel takes us to an alternate universe along with protagonist Mal Evans, the "5th Beatle" history has neglected. In Peter Lee's imagination, Evans is given the chance to go back in time and prevent the break-up of the Fab Four, thus saving himself from his own ignominious death some time later. The joy Lee feels as he imagines the new tunes and albums emerging as the reunited Beatles get their groove back is palpable, and I found myself wanting their new collaborations never to end. This is an absolute must for Beatles fans, children of the 60s, and anyone who ever ponders the question, "What if?"
February 4, 2016
Truly fun read
A great read for every Beatles fan. "What if" the Beatles had stayed together? I really enjoyed this fictional perspective as told by the not-so-fictional assistant to the Beatles.
A great read for every Beatles fan. "What if" the Beatles had stayed together? I really enjoyed this fictional perspective as told by the not-so-fictional assistant to the Beatles.
September 4, 2015
Interesting alternate history of The Beatles and exploration of Mal Evans, a real-life roadie of the band. Fast-paced read!
October 29, 2015
Neat twist - not all is at its best in this alternate time when the Beatles don't break up but it's a easy read and entertaining.
November 5, 2023
The narrator’s voice is painfully American, and the rest is embarrassingly under-researched.
August 21, 2017
In last week’s editorial, I wrote that there were certain thematic strands which seem to have been going through the content of this magazine over the past few months, and that one of these was a weird subculture that I had recently discovered linking the esoteric discipline of Alternative History, a genre of fiction working on a quantum level, with the life and career of the most famous rock and roll group of all time; The Beatles.
The Collins English Dictionary defines alternative history as "a genre of fiction in which the author speculates on how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical event had had a different outcome." According to Steven H Silver, an American science fiction editor, alternate history requires three things: a point of divergence from the history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing, a change that would alter history as it is known, and an examination of the ramifications of that change.
The major character in this book is someone of whom every Beatles fan has heard, but about whom most of us know little more than what is written on his Wikipedia page, from which I abstracted the following few paragraphs.
In the early 1960s, Malcolm ‘Mal’ Evans was employed as a telephone engineer, and also worked part-time as a bouncer at the Cavern Club. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, later hired Evans as the group's assistant roadie, in tandem with Neil Aspinall. Peter Brown (one of Epstein's staff) later wrote that Evans was "a kindly, but menacing-looking young man". Evans contributed to recordings, and appeared in some of the films the group made. After The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, Evans carried on assisting them until their break-up in 1970. From 1969, Evans also found work as a record producer (most notably with Badfinger's top 10 hit "No Matter What").
Evans was killed by police on 5 January 1976, at his home in Los Angeles. Officers were called when his girlfriend phoned the police and told them that Evans was confused and had a gun. The police mistook the air rifle Evans was holding for a rifle and shot him dead.
This is the starting point, the point of divergence if you will, for this elegantly written and massively entertaining book.
This is where the book starts off; Mal is lying on the floor of his apartment, he knows he is dying, and he has many regrets in his life. He regrets not having been a better father to his children, and he regrets the way his marriage had fizzled out of existence, withering and dying on the vine through neglect, mostly on his part. But above all he regrets the fact that the four men whom he loves more than anything else in his life have also largely gone their separate ways, and - because he is quite prepared to take responsibility for what happened to his wife and his children - he feels that the dissolution of The Beatles is also his fault; that they broke up because he hadn’t tried hard enough to keep them together.
And he hears a voice calling him from somewhere deep either in his soul or the afterlife (it is never made clear which, and to be honest it doesn’t really matter) and somehow he finds himself still alive, back in 1969 when - like the rest of the world - he begins to realise that all is not well with The Fab Four.
But he has an opportunity to right the wrongs that ripped apart the world's greatest band.
And while he succeeds in creating an alternate history, helping to create new Beatles music for the world to hear, he finds that fate is plotting to reverse his world. Paul McCartney and John Lennon quarrel constantly; George Harrison is consumed by self-doubt; Ringo Starr has trouble living up to the Beatle name. And while he succeeds in keeping the band together, helping to create new Beatles albums for the world to hear (“Imagine” and “Live and Let Die” are Beatles songs!), he finds that fate is plotting to reverse his world.
And Mal, in the middle of it all, must work to keep the fantasy alive, trying to avoid the same mistakes he made the first time while avoiding the grasp of Death, which continues to pursue him in his new life.
The author admits: “I’ve always been bothered that the Beatles broke up too soon. Granted, I didn’t expect them to be the Rolling Stones, playing together for 50 years, but eight years wasn’t enough. I had always asked myself, “What if? What if they had stayed together?”
Well so had I, and so - as I recounted in these pages a few weeks ago - have a lot of other people, but few have done it as elegantly, logically or satisfying as the author of this book. Because, despite the supernatural holy magick of the premise itself, the events of this narrative actually unfold in a satisfyingly logickal manner. Yes, the spelling of logickal is intentional. Because unlike so many books of this ilk, the author defines the rules of his particular fictional universe early on and never wavers from them, and one is not left wondering if the real,world could have been the way it is described in this book, but why wasn’t it. In many ways the sequence of events as laid out here actually makes more sense than the way things actually panned out in the timeline in which I (and I strongly suspect, the vast majority of people reading this book review) exist.
And the ending? Well, we are back in esoteric territory again, but I have spent much of my adult life living in esoteric territory that makes much less sense than this eminently satisfying denouement. Would I recommend this book to anyone else, undoubtedly, although I suspect that it would help if they were a Beatle fan. But the Fab Four are so ubiquitous in today’s culture, even though they split up nearly half a century ago, that anyone who is likely to want to read this book will have enough insider knowledge to appreciate all the cunningly executed little in jokes and cultural references.
So go out and buy this book. I mean you innits?
www.gonzoweekly.com
The Collins English Dictionary defines alternative history as "a genre of fiction in which the author speculates on how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical event had had a different outcome." According to Steven H Silver, an American science fiction editor, alternate history requires three things: a point of divergence from the history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing, a change that would alter history as it is known, and an examination of the ramifications of that change.
The major character in this book is someone of whom every Beatles fan has heard, but about whom most of us know little more than what is written on his Wikipedia page, from which I abstracted the following few paragraphs.
In the early 1960s, Malcolm ‘Mal’ Evans was employed as a telephone engineer, and also worked part-time as a bouncer at the Cavern Club. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, later hired Evans as the group's assistant roadie, in tandem with Neil Aspinall. Peter Brown (one of Epstein's staff) later wrote that Evans was "a kindly, but menacing-looking young man". Evans contributed to recordings, and appeared in some of the films the group made. After The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, Evans carried on assisting them until their break-up in 1970. From 1969, Evans also found work as a record producer (most notably with Badfinger's top 10 hit "No Matter What").
Evans was killed by police on 5 January 1976, at his home in Los Angeles. Officers were called when his girlfriend phoned the police and told them that Evans was confused and had a gun. The police mistook the air rifle Evans was holding for a rifle and shot him dead.
This is the starting point, the point of divergence if you will, for this elegantly written and massively entertaining book.
This is where the book starts off; Mal is lying on the floor of his apartment, he knows he is dying, and he has many regrets in his life. He regrets not having been a better father to his children, and he regrets the way his marriage had fizzled out of existence, withering and dying on the vine through neglect, mostly on his part. But above all he regrets the fact that the four men whom he loves more than anything else in his life have also largely gone their separate ways, and - because he is quite prepared to take responsibility for what happened to his wife and his children - he feels that the dissolution of The Beatles is also his fault; that they broke up because he hadn’t tried hard enough to keep them together.
And he hears a voice calling him from somewhere deep either in his soul or the afterlife (it is never made clear which, and to be honest it doesn’t really matter) and somehow he finds himself still alive, back in 1969 when - like the rest of the world - he begins to realise that all is not well with The Fab Four.
But he has an opportunity to right the wrongs that ripped apart the world's greatest band.
And while he succeeds in creating an alternate history, helping to create new Beatles music for the world to hear, he finds that fate is plotting to reverse his world. Paul McCartney and John Lennon quarrel constantly; George Harrison is consumed by self-doubt; Ringo Starr has trouble living up to the Beatle name. And while he succeeds in keeping the band together, helping to create new Beatles albums for the world to hear (“Imagine” and “Live and Let Die” are Beatles songs!), he finds that fate is plotting to reverse his world.
And Mal, in the middle of it all, must work to keep the fantasy alive, trying to avoid the same mistakes he made the first time while avoiding the grasp of Death, which continues to pursue him in his new life.
The author admits: “I’ve always been bothered that the Beatles broke up too soon. Granted, I didn’t expect them to be the Rolling Stones, playing together for 50 years, but eight years wasn’t enough. I had always asked myself, “What if? What if they had stayed together?”
Well so had I, and so - as I recounted in these pages a few weeks ago - have a lot of other people, but few have done it as elegantly, logically or satisfying as the author of this book. Because, despite the supernatural holy magick of the premise itself, the events of this narrative actually unfold in a satisfyingly logickal manner. Yes, the spelling of logickal is intentional. Because unlike so many books of this ilk, the author defines the rules of his particular fictional universe early on and never wavers from them, and one is not left wondering if the real,world could have been the way it is described in this book, but why wasn’t it. In many ways the sequence of events as laid out here actually makes more sense than the way things actually panned out in the timeline in which I (and I strongly suspect, the vast majority of people reading this book review) exist.
And the ending? Well, we are back in esoteric territory again, but I have spent much of my adult life living in esoteric territory that makes much less sense than this eminently satisfying denouement. Would I recommend this book to anyone else, undoubtedly, although I suspect that it would help if they were a Beatle fan. But the Fab Four are so ubiquitous in today’s culture, even though they split up nearly half a century ago, that anyone who is likely to want to read this book will have enough insider knowledge to appreciate all the cunningly executed little in jokes and cultural references.
So go out and buy this book. I mean you innits?
www.gonzoweekly.com
May 13, 2024
This is the worst fan fiction ever. It starts out fairly well but goes downhill from there. The author portrays every character to either be weak and idiotic or nowhere near the personalities they truly are.
I bought this book with an open mind, hoping to find something captivating and entertaining. Instead this is just a pile of rubbish.
I bought this book with an open mind, hoping to find something captivating and entertaining. Instead this is just a pile of rubbish.
May 5, 2016
In this alternate reality novel, Mal Evans, assistant to the Beatles for many years, lies dying in an LA apartment. He has been shot by a police officer who mistook Evans air pistol for a gun. As he lies on the floor, his life fading away, his last sight is of that police officer.
When he awakes, it is in England, and the time has regressed to five years ago. He heads to the recording studio, and it is all as it has been back then. Mal realises that he has the opportunity to get the band to never break up and for them to release more great music and avoid the downward spiral each encountered after the Beatles disbanded.
Beatle fans will be interested in this insider look at what it was like day after day living and working with the Beatles. Mal Evans is a real person, although few know his name. He did die in LA in an encounter with the police. He was there day after day with the Fab Four and knew them and their secrets better than almost anyone. Peter Lee has taken that insider knowledge to imagine a different story, one that works better for Beatles fans. This book is recommended for music lovers and readers who enjoy alternate reality novels.
When he awakes, it is in England, and the time has regressed to five years ago. He heads to the recording studio, and it is all as it has been back then. Mal realises that he has the opportunity to get the band to never break up and for them to release more great music and avoid the downward spiral each encountered after the Beatles disbanded.
Beatle fans will be interested in this insider look at what it was like day after day living and working with the Beatles. Mal Evans is a real person, although few know his name. He did die in LA in an encounter with the police. He was there day after day with the Fab Four and knew them and their secrets better than almost anyone. Peter Lee has taken that insider knowledge to imagine a different story, one that works better for Beatles fans. This book is recommended for music lovers and readers who enjoy alternate reality novels.
November 17, 2015
I received this book from the author as a Goodreads giveaway for an honest review.
I didn't know what to expect from this book when I received it, but Wow!!. What a great book. It took me down memory lane and I even checked out some old songs on You Tube that i hadn't heard in a while. This book also made me ponder about the what if and if we could relive some moments in life. Would our lives be completely different or would it be similar to how it has played out. Was a little disappointed when I finished the book. The author sure has done his research. Would definitely recommend this book to a Beatles fan or someone who has not yet discovered their music.
I didn't know what to expect from this book when I received it, but Wow!!. What a great book. It took me down memory lane and I even checked out some old songs on You Tube that i hadn't heard in a while. This book also made me ponder about the what if and if we could relive some moments in life. Would our lives be completely different or would it be similar to how it has played out. Was a little disappointed when I finished the book. The author sure has done his research. Would definitely recommend this book to a Beatles fan or someone who has not yet discovered their music.
July 12, 2016
Entertaining little alternate history that will appeal to Beatle fans. What if they'd never split up? What if songs like Live and Let Die and Imagine were actually later Beatle songs? A worthy nod to one of the lesser known heroes of that era, Mal Evans.
January 4, 2017
A fun journey into what might have been. Interesting to be that close to the Fab Four and think about how they interacted, how their personalities clashed, and how much better they were together than on their solo albums.
Read
January 24, 2017Didn't finish it hence no rating
Read
March 31, 2017Engaging, what-if, wishful thinking novel of how things might have turned out differently. Interesting that the author pegged a change of course in the Beatles dissolution, down to one single phone call. I've always felt sad how Mal ended up, not just his death, but how little he was left with after the group disbanded.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews