Immediately after John Lennon’s death, Cynthia Lennon reluctantly let her son, Julian, visit Yoko Ono in New York. Julian was still a teenager, and Cynthia didn’t want him to travel alone.

Cynthia Lennon said that she, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Paul McCartney were the people closest to John Lennon before The Beatles. Lennon had a number of friends, but she didn’t think he could be his ...