A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties
by Suze Rotolo

A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties
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Book Summary Information

Author: Suze Rotolo
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-12
ISBN: 0767926889
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Broadway

Book Reviews of A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

Book Review: Delightful read
Summary: 5 Stars

Being a huge Dylan fan I eventually had to get around to reading this book, but was a bit reticent, feeling Suze Rotolo might be exploiting her connection to Dylan (especially with the use of the cover photograph). Yet after reading her book I was charmed and thankful she had written it. The book portrays a side of Bob Dylan that is not as familiar to us: a vulnerable, young man in love, developing his enormous talent and very sensitive. The story is not just about Dylan, but about Suze herself and her life coming of age in the early 60's in a Greenwich Village alive with change and excitement. I'm a New Yorker myself, and although I wasn't there for the 60's, there's a great sense of the place and the times. I particularly enjoyed the illustrations, photographs and other memorabilia that are scattered throughout the pages. I would have liked to learn more about what happend to Suze later on, I believe she married an Italian and went to live in Italy, had a son and came back to New York to pursue her artwork. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the life of Bob Dylan and/or the 60's.

Summary of A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

A Freewheelin? Time is Suze Rotolo?s firsthand, eyewitness, participant-observer account of the immensely creative and fertile years of the 1960s, just before the circus was in full swing and Bob Dylan became the anointed ringmaster. It chronicles the back-story of Greenwich Village in the early days of the folk music explosion, when Dylan was honing his skills and she was in the ring with him.

A shy girl from Queens, Suze Rotolo was the daughter of Italian working-class Communists. Growing up at the start of the Cold War and during McCarthyism, she inevitably became an outsider in her neighborhood and at school. Her childhood was turbulent, but Suze found solace in poetry, art, and music. In Washington Square Park, in Greenwich Village, she encountered like-minded friends who were also politically active. Then one hot day in July 1961, Suze met Bob Dylan, a rising young musician, at a folk concert at Riverside Church. She was seventeen, he was twenty; they were young, curious, and inseparable. During the years they were together, Dylan was transformed from an obscure folk singer into an uneasy spokesperson for a generation.

Suze Rotolo?s story is rich in character and setting, filled with vivid memories of those tumultuous years of dramatic change and poignantly rising expectations when art, culture, and politics all seemed to be conspiring to bring our country a better, freer, richer, and more equitable life. She writes of her involvement with the civil rights movement and describes the sometimes frustrating experience of being a woman in a male-dominated culture, before women?s liberation changed the rules for the better. And she tells the wonderfully romantic story of her sweet but sometimes wrenching love affair and its eventual collapse under the pressures of growing fame.

A Freewheelin? Time is a vibrant, moving memoir of a hopeful time and place and of a vital subculture at its most creative. It communicates the excitement of youth, the heartbreak of young love, and the struggles for a brighter future.

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