The Fifth Beatle

Vivek Tiwary, Andrew Robinson (Illustratoins) 2012

Summary

A graphic novel depicting the story of Brian Epstein’s role in managing The Beatles. Begins with Epstein (pronounced ep-stine, as the novel attests) discovering The Beatles and quickly becoming their manager. The band will be bigger than Elvis, Epstein says to anyone who will listen. Epstein encourages the group to abandon their scruffy duds and adopt a clean-cut look, perhaps creating the model for the many boy bands to come in the next 50 years. Epstein then convinces George Martin of EMI to sign the band to a label. The story follows the band all the way up to 1967 and Epstein’s death of accidental overdose.

Thoughts

After the release of the new Beatles archive footage from their Get Back sessions, I had found myself with a case of Beatlesmania. I had started this graphic novel a few years back but for whatever reason, never finished it, so now was as good a time as any. The story begins with The Beatles already dominating the Liverpool club scene and Brian Epstein (pronounced ep-stine!), born into a family of successful retailers managing a string of music shops. Epstein first hears The Beatles at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and becomes immediately insistent, despite no prior management experience, that he will manage the band to a stardom bigger than Elvis. The boys, showcasing their characteristic happy-go-lucky amenability, go right along, even going so far as to ditch the scruffy duds in favor of suits and neat hairdos. After getting laughed out of nearly every record company in England, Epstein finally convinces George Martin at EMI to sign the new act. The rest, as they say, is history. Fortunately, the novel doesn’t leave it to history to tell the story, continuing right along to the Beatles first record, subsequent tours, assertions of greater importance than religious figures, subsequent cessation of tours, and eventually, Epstein’s death due to accidental overdose in 1967, followed shortly thereafter by the band’s breakup.

The story is well told by Tiwary, and Robinson’s pencil work is stellar, adopting exceptionally realistic facial depictions. A large part of the story is Epstein’s homosexuality, and how his life and love made him a criminal under the same law that put Oscar Wilde into prison. Tiwary’s script implies that the various depressants and stimulants Epstein took were in part to counteract this “carnal” impulses and were directly responsible for his death, which makes for taut narrative but perhaps less faithful reporting. Speaking of invention, while most of the story is based on or directly informed by facts (there is an absolutely bizarre scene where Ed Sullivan negotiates an appearance of the band on his show using a puppet, which the author’s postscript assures us happened), there is some artistic license, primarily in the character of Moxie, Epstein’s assistant. Epstein’s real life assistant was James Alistair Taylor, so we are left to wonder authorial intent for authorial license. Is Moxie some sort of angel for Epstein, to guide him in love and success? Or something else?

All said, the book is a well realized depiction of The Beatles and their rise, and Epstein’s role in that. Supremely impressive the impact Epstein had on the world despite only spending 32 years here.