That’s Just the Way Life Goes.

Interviewer: One of the themes that runs throughout the book is that John was creating some truly beautiful and visionary music at the same time as he was being abusive and damaging to people around him. How did you balance those two competing forces, particularly when some of your interviewees tell completely different stories about the same event?

Graeme Thomson: That’s often the case, and when I started writing biographies, that used to trouble me quite a lot, that people’s versions of events could be so conflicting. I worry about it less now, because that’s just the way life goes. And in a way it’s not my job to tie it up in a neat bow. I think you just present what you believe is the truth of the matter to the reader, and then you try to get out of the way of it.

Our duty is to present what we believe is the truth, and allow others to make of it what they will.