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
Product features:
  • ISBN13: 9780767926881
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

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

Book Review: An Interesting Time, But at an Emotional Distance
Summary: 3 Stars

If all you have to go by is the young girl on the cover of "Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" you think of Suze Rotolo as a young and attractive woman, so it is a bit jarring to realize she was in her mid-60's when she wrote this book.

After 40 years she seems to stand outside that time ... she has no apparent wish to relive it. As a result the book was not as engaging as I'd hoped it would be. Making matters worse is the haphazard organization, in which you skip back and forth in time so often it becomes hard to keep in mind what is going on. She also spends a fair number of pages detailing her personal life beyond anything going on with Bob Dylan, and I found this less interesting partly because she seems to be at such an emotional remove from it.

Right after this I read Patty Boyd's Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, which I thought was a better and warmer read even though the subject matter (George and Eric vs. Bob Dylan) was personally not as interesting to me.

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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