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| A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties (Thorndike Press Large Print Biography Series) | 
 enlarge | Author: Suze Rotolo
Publisher: Gale Cengage
Category: Book
Buy New: $31.50
New (5) from $31.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 3279266
Format: Large Print
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Lrg
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 517
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 1410408469
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42164092
EAN: 9781410408464
ASIN: 1410408469
Publication Date: August 6, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
Could Be Final Word May 16, 2008
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
I have followed Dylan since 1964 and his music. This book is a refreshing, vulnerable essay of Suze's life with Bob Dylan for 4 years. It is intimate, respectful, sensitive [she speaks of tears listening even to this day of his early records as she was there and says today they accurately portray Dylan] and includes much never-before-read material that is helpful in getting to know the man Dylan. She gives us keen insight into her feelings about their relationship, friends and her family, with extensive history of her family as well as her life before and after Bob Dylan. She is as important in this book as Bob is. It is understandably obvious she still has emotions and maybe even wounds about this relationship. After reading this book (and I have read others on Dylan) I had feelings of nostalgia, and then feelings of satisfaction as the book concluded with a sense of completion. If I ever meet Dylan I feel for the first time I could relate to him as a man and not relate to him as a myth or icon. I just returned from the Village in NYC and Suze's description of it is completely accurate. I was there in the 70s and it is a completely different place today. I believe this book is vulnerable and complete enough to be the final word on Dylan as a person from the early years by someone who knew him better than anyone else.
 Her Back Pages... May 13, 2008
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
I loved this book. The story of a proto-feminist red-diaper baby artist who migrates to the post-beatnik Village is a story worth hearing--Suze Rotolo's re-telling of her role in publicly disobeying the Cuba travel embargo is alone worth the price of admission. But, while there are a few major revelations and Rotolo's sustaining respect for Dylan's privacy is admirable, I wanted more, more, more about the guy huddled-up next to the author in the famous photo. I look forward to sister Carla's memoirs.
I can finally let go of the 60's May 22, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book. I was born in '63 and can only hope to get a feel through bios and countless viewings of Woodstock, Dont look Back and others. I was emotionally slammed by this book as it shows Suze to be a strong, intelligent, progressive and sensitive woman waaay ahead of her time. The relationship with Bob now makes perfect sense based on their sensibilities and sensitivities. The info shared is deeply personal without being excessive or embarrassing. Dylan's character and emotional state is revealed while the progression of Suze and Bob's relationship brought me close to tears several times. The non-linear time format kept things lively and interesting. One of the gifts for me was Suze's attitude that Greenwich Village is essentially a state of mind and that we can recreate it in the present if the desire and creative elements are there. The book also offered me insight into my own parents struggles in this country as second generation European immigrants. I blasted through this book and as a result have had to cleanse my mental palate a bit (happily). Thank you Suze Rotolo for sharing after all these years and for some good advice for the present.
Honest, truthful, sweet, generous, loaded with information and insight May 26, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Like almost all the reviewers so far I loved this book, and like some I was also in the same neighborhood as the events recorded in this wonderful book. In every instance where I knew someone or hung out at a place mentioned, the version here coincides exactly with what I remember but there is so much more I didn't know and so many people I only knew about second hand. This is a generous and kind book but also a starkly honest one. If you want to know what it was like then in Greenwich village in the 60s, then this is the best source I know of. Bob Dylan's persona in various documentaries comes off to many as arrogant but you will gain a new appreciation for him both as an artist and as a person from one who was closer to him than any other in his first years as an artist (1961 to 1964), when most of the events in the book take place. You will also understand what attracted him to Suze Rotolo. My memory of her was of a radiant smile and personality, but you will understand clearly from this book, as did Bob Dylan, that there was solid substance behind her wonderful smile.
I also want to recommend this book to today's generation, those under the age of 25 or so. There is a new spirit of idealism and creativity and I think you would find it profitable to read an account of an earlier era that also was pregnant with that kind of promise that had yet to come to fruition. As Suze Rotolo makes clear, it was a time when the exploding creativity and freedom of the sixties was still living within the husk of an older and much darker world. The old ways affected everyone, even the most bohemian denizens of Greenwich Village. There is great wisdom here about the conflicts and struggles that come when a young woman instinctively knows that conventional ways are limiting and stunting her as a person but there is no vocabulary and not yet the support of the nascent women's movement to help her.
If you have any interest at all in Bob Dylan, in Greenwich Village in the sixties, in the folkmusic revival of that period, in the struggles of politically and socially conscious young women in the immediate pre-feminist period or if you just want to enjoy yourself or learn some lessons for the present from experiences of the past you owe it to yourself to read this terrific book.
 For Interested Parties Only June 17, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I've always had a fascination with the folk movement centered in Greenwich Village in the early 60s, especially the incredible rise of Bob Dylan in that milieu. So, when I heard that Suze Rotolo, Dylan's girlfriend from that era, had written a book about her experiences during that time, I quickly placed my order. My feeling on completing it was that she is too guarded and careful here. She admits she doesn't want to upset Mr. Dylan and I also think that she doesn't wish to reveal too much of herself. Not that I wanted more dirt. I just wanted to know more things like what it felt like to have your famous boyfriend write and record a song lambasting your mother and sister (Ballad in Plain D). Yes, we do learn she had "mixed feelings" about the occurrence but I kinda coulda guessed that. She is too understanding when she hears from a third party about Bob's career-enhancing affair with Joan Baez. Come on Suze, go ahead and call him a two-timing [...]! Ms. Rotollo is careful to focus mostly on her life and not Bob's. Even though she has not achieved anywhere near the kind of things Dylan has, this could have worked if she had bared her soul. She describes some wacky dead ends she's taken (e.g. macrobiotic diet) but she does it with out tying it back to any flaws of her own. Suze seems like a lovely person, reminiscent of many of my best friends over the years. Fanatic that I am, I'm not at all sorry for having read her book and would suggest the same to like-minded folks. Just don't expect too much. Not to compare, but Dylan's own memoir "Chronicles Part I" stands on its own for anyone to read. Suze's book is for interested parties only.
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