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A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties
A Freewheelin’ Time is Suze Rotolo’s firsthand, eyewitness, 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.
369 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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January 13, 2025
1/10/25: The struggle in Dylan's early romantic life in New York was between Joan Baez and Suze Rotolo, whose name was changed to Sylvie Russo in Timothee Chalamet's A Complete Unknown, which I loved. Dylan requested that the filmmakers change her name in the film as Rotolo had never wanted to be associated with all the noise of Dylan's fame. Dylan was trying to honor her memory and protect her privacy, in a way, though she died in 2011. But the cover of Freewheelin', which is also the cover of her book, and appears in the movie, clearly features her with him. This book is Suze Rotolo's own version of the events of the time, which makes it clear how influential she was on his early music and politics.
Original review, 8/11/23: Album covers (for vinyl records, kids!) often featured beautiful women, sometimes with the featured artist. Who IS that girl?! And before google search, you had to wait around to see if the answer came up in a review or in some rock mag gossip column. On Bob Dylan’s first successful album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, that girl is Suze Rotolo, a shy woman from Queens, who met Dylan when she was 17 and Bobby was 20, at a folk concert in July 1961 in Riverside Church, Manhattan. They had a relationship for a few but important years, and a friendship for a few years later, but hey, they were young; with Dylan’s fame messing with his head, odds were long that the relationship would last (and Joan Baez was next, in case you were wondering, and that didn't last so long, either).
Rotolo’s memoir is solidly written and interesting, for the most part, for the remaining few of us who might want to know about that period. She names names in the folk scene that sometimes seem to come to mind as she writes, as she talks to us in a Bleecker Street folk club. She in an afterword says the book is a memory book so is not meant to be as factual as it is a kind of a dreamscape--Oh, I’m sitting next to Fidel Castro in Cuba! I’m at a party with Edie Sedgewick! The names and images pop up kind of at random at times.
Rotolo, who died at 68 in 2011--the book published in 2008--wants to make it clear she is no mere rock star eye candy. They were inseparable for a few years, but she also worked in theater and art, a regular Greenwich Village icon herself. Her mother--Rotolo refers to her sometimes as Marxist Mary, and Rotolo calls herself a Red Diaper Baby, raised by Communist Party parents--who distrusted Dylan--the man of many stories, many of them he made up about himself--got her daughter out of Manhattan to art school in Italy for a year, when Dylan wrote many of his more anguished early love songs about her, but she came back and they were together again for a period.
She says she couldn’t always trust Dylan--Jokerman--but she makes it clear they were each other’s first loves, for real. And Rotolo is not writing a tell-all gossip rag. She is not hard on Dylan or anyone else. She does not name the songs she sees herself featured in, nor interpret any of them for us, leaving that work to listeners to make them their own. But I would have liked at least some of that. Rotolo just wants to give us some images of them together, and those images are often sweet. She shares excerpts from notes and letters he sent her.
The book is less Dylan girlfriend tale than a kind of socio-cultural history of Greenwich Village in the early sixties--Dave Van Ronk, Ian and Sylvia, Tom Paxton, and many others. She does a good job of capturing the freewheelin’ vibe of youth in that place and time. Freedom, dissent against injustice. Of course she knows we wouldn’t be reading it unless we were Dylan fans, so we get some stories of their going to movies and art galleries and plays, but she also tells her Commie working-class early strong woman story (though she acknowledges these were early sixties pre-feminist times, too. The times they needed changin').
The book is better in the first ¾, but she doesn’t quite know how to end it and tacks on her trip to Cuba, and random meetings with famous people at the time, stuff she wanted to get into the book but didn’t know quite how. But I still liked listening to it.
". . . the sixties were an era that spoke a language of inquiry and curiosity and rebelliousness against the stifling and repressive political and social culture of the decade that preceded it. The new generation causing all the fuss was not driven by the market: we had something to say, not something to sell."
Random facts:
*Rotolo was told by her mother that Suze’s step-father lost his military security clearance because of the radical album cover--Dylan seen as an anarchist protest singer. !!!! But the cover seems so sweet and innocent!
*The underage Rotolo (17) was told not to move in with Dylan (also underage at 20) until a day after her eighteenth birthday. And that she did!
*Dylan and Suze watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV in her Avenue B apartment. I also watched that live.
Suggestions for related rstudy: Dylan’s own Chronicles, Dave Van Ronk’s The Mayor of McDougal Street, the documentary No Direction Home. On to Positively Fourth Street.
Original review, 8/11/23: Album covers (for vinyl records, kids!) often featured beautiful women, sometimes with the featured artist. Who IS that girl?! And before google search, you had to wait around to see if the answer came up in a review or in some rock mag gossip column. On Bob Dylan’s first successful album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, that girl is Suze Rotolo, a shy woman from Queens, who met Dylan when she was 17 and Bobby was 20, at a folk concert in July 1961 in Riverside Church, Manhattan. They had a relationship for a few but important years, and a friendship for a few years later, but hey, they were young; with Dylan’s fame messing with his head, odds were long that the relationship would last (and Joan Baez was next, in case you were wondering, and that didn't last so long, either).
Rotolo’s memoir is solidly written and interesting, for the most part, for the remaining few of us who might want to know about that period. She names names in the folk scene that sometimes seem to come to mind as she writes, as she talks to us in a Bleecker Street folk club. She in an afterword says the book is a memory book so is not meant to be as factual as it is a kind of a dreamscape--Oh, I’m sitting next to Fidel Castro in Cuba! I’m at a party with Edie Sedgewick! The names and images pop up kind of at random at times.
Rotolo, who died at 68 in 2011--the book published in 2008--wants to make it clear she is no mere rock star eye candy. They were inseparable for a few years, but she also worked in theater and art, a regular Greenwich Village icon herself. Her mother--Rotolo refers to her sometimes as Marxist Mary, and Rotolo calls herself a Red Diaper Baby, raised by Communist Party parents--who distrusted Dylan--the man of many stories, many of them he made up about himself--got her daughter out of Manhattan to art school in Italy for a year, when Dylan wrote many of his more anguished early love songs about her, but she came back and they were together again for a period.
She says she couldn’t always trust Dylan--Jokerman--but she makes it clear they were each other’s first loves, for real. And Rotolo is not writing a tell-all gossip rag. She is not hard on Dylan or anyone else. She does not name the songs she sees herself featured in, nor interpret any of them for us, leaving that work to listeners to make them their own. But I would have liked at least some of that. Rotolo just wants to give us some images of them together, and those images are often sweet. She shares excerpts from notes and letters he sent her.
The book is less Dylan girlfriend tale than a kind of socio-cultural history of Greenwich Village in the early sixties--Dave Van Ronk, Ian and Sylvia, Tom Paxton, and many others. She does a good job of capturing the freewheelin’ vibe of youth in that place and time. Freedom, dissent against injustice. Of course she knows we wouldn’t be reading it unless we were Dylan fans, so we get some stories of their going to movies and art galleries and plays, but she also tells her Commie working-class early strong woman story (though she acknowledges these were early sixties pre-feminist times, too. The times they needed changin').
The book is better in the first ¾, but she doesn’t quite know how to end it and tacks on her trip to Cuba, and random meetings with famous people at the time, stuff she wanted to get into the book but didn’t know quite how. But I still liked listening to it.
". . . the sixties were an era that spoke a language of inquiry and curiosity and rebelliousness against the stifling and repressive political and social culture of the decade that preceded it. The new generation causing all the fuss was not driven by the market: we had something to say, not something to sell."
Random facts:
*Rotolo was told by her mother that Suze’s step-father lost his military security clearance because of the radical album cover--Dylan seen as an anarchist protest singer. !!!! But the cover seems so sweet and innocent!
*The underage Rotolo (17) was told not to move in with Dylan (also underage at 20) until a day after her eighteenth birthday. And that she did!
*Dylan and Suze watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV in her Avenue B apartment. I also watched that live.
Suggestions for related rstudy: Dylan’s own Chronicles, Dave Van Ronk’s The Mayor of McDougal Street, the documentary No Direction Home. On to Positively Fourth Street.
August 16, 2020
A few weeks ago I listened to Blood on the Tracks while making dinner one night. It had been years since I'd listened to it all the way through, but listening to a great album after years away is always a fantastic experience: you're reminded that it's great for a reason. It's not just superb art but also a lot of fun to listen to. Suddenly I wanted to be reading a book about Bob Dylan. I had two in the house, A Freewheelin' Time and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña, and A Freewheelin' Time seemed like something my pandemic brain could handle.
Suze Rotolo is the woman on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and was in a serious relationship with Dylan for a few years; her portrayal of Dylan seems honest but, as the subtitle implies, this memoir is more about the whole milieu of the Village in the sixties—the music scene and the activist/political scene. Rotolo was a visual artist, so some time is also spent detailing her years in art school in Italy. The writing was quite basic but it was fun to learn about this particular period of U.S. cultural history. While I was reading this I also watched Scorsese's 3-hour Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, over several nights, and if you decide to read this book I recommend you do that as well—it was fun and helpful to be able to put faces and voices to the many people the book mentions, including Rotolo herself. However, if i'm being honest it would be just as much fun to watch the documentary and skip the book altogether.
Suze Rotolo is the woman on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and was in a serious relationship with Dylan for a few years; her portrayal of Dylan seems honest but, as the subtitle implies, this memoir is more about the whole milieu of the Village in the sixties—the music scene and the activist/political scene. Rotolo was a visual artist, so some time is also spent detailing her years in art school in Italy. The writing was quite basic but it was fun to learn about this particular period of U.S. cultural history. While I was reading this I also watched Scorsese's 3-hour Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, over several nights, and if you decide to read this book I recommend you do that as well—it was fun and helpful to be able to put faces and voices to the many people the book mentions, including Rotolo herself. However, if i'm being honest it would be just as much fun to watch the documentary and skip the book altogether.
February 10, 2018
As a “red diaper baby” with two Communist parents, political activism was built into Suze’s DNA. As a young teenager she began hanging out in Greenwich Village with other like-minded friends and was soon a fixture at clubs such as Gerdes Folk City, The Gaslight, Kettle of Fish and The Bitter End. Places that launched the careers of many folk singers such as Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Peter, Paul & Mary, Odetta and of course Bob Dylan.
When remembering their first encounter, Bob said “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupids arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard.” Just like that Dylan met his first, and most important Muse. Bob had only recently moved to NYC from his small town in Minnesota and it was through Suze that he would not only discover many of the poets and writers that would greatly influence his work but also learn about the political issues he would soon be known for writing about.
But as Dylan began to make a name for himself Suze could feel hers being diminished. “All that was offered to a musicians girlfriend in the early 60’s was a role as her boyfriend’s “chick”, a string on his guitar. In the case of Bob’s rising fame, I would be gatekeeper, one step closer to an idol. People would want to know me just to get closer to him. My significance would be based on his greater significance. That idea did not entice.”
But Suze was much more than just a string on Dylan’s guitar. Or the girl walking down the street with him on the cover of A Freewheelin’ Time. In her book she discusses not only their relationship, but also gives an insiders look at 60's Greenwich Village and the numerous political issues the were at the forefront of their world.
I recently discussed Suze and her amazing life in an episode of my podcast
Muses and Stuff. Click the link the head to our site, our check us out on iTunes.
When remembering their first encounter, Bob said “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupids arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard.” Just like that Dylan met his first, and most important Muse. Bob had only recently moved to NYC from his small town in Minnesota and it was through Suze that he would not only discover many of the poets and writers that would greatly influence his work but also learn about the political issues he would soon be known for writing about.
But as Dylan began to make a name for himself Suze could feel hers being diminished. “All that was offered to a musicians girlfriend in the early 60’s was a role as her boyfriend’s “chick”, a string on his guitar. In the case of Bob’s rising fame, I would be gatekeeper, one step closer to an idol. People would want to know me just to get closer to him. My significance would be based on his greater significance. That idea did not entice.”
But Suze was much more than just a string on Dylan’s guitar. Or the girl walking down the street with him on the cover of A Freewheelin’ Time. In her book she discusses not only their relationship, but also gives an insiders look at 60's Greenwich Village and the numerous political issues the were at the forefront of their world.
I recently discussed Suze and her amazing life in an episode of my podcast
Muses and Stuff. Click the link the head to our site, our check us out on iTunes.
February 4, 2009
I have mixed feelings about this book but overall I liked it. On the one hand, the writing isn’t stellar and Rotolo bounces all over the place chronologically and thematically. I found myself often having to go back and figure out where we were in the time line (which isn’t a very accurate term because there is no “line” of time involved here). On the other hand, this book is extremely valuable for its insight into Bob Dylan. Rotolo’s is a unique perspective on Dylan’s transformation from an unknown musician to the phenomenon he became during the years they were together. Who else in the world could tell a better story about that? Nobody. If you love Bob Dylan and/or the Village, Rotolo’s stories are great. And if you don’t, then why would you read this book in the first place?
Maybe one problem is that the book seems to be attempting too much. Is it Suze’s story? Dylan’s story? Greenwich Village’s story? The story of the sixties? Obviously they all overlap and each could and should appear in the story of the others, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear focus. At any given time, the focus is on one or another, with the others making little “cameos”. This lack of focus may have contributed to the overall chaotic feeling of the book. One thing is for sure--the subtitle of the book, “A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties”, is not completely representative of the book’s contents.
One thing I found very interesting is that Rotolo mentions several times that she didn’t want to be the “supportive woman behind the great man”. She says she wanted to create her own success, separate from her role as the musician’s girlfriend. But isn’t it ironic that the jobs she did most often were things like building stage props and being in charge of sound or lighting for plays? Even when she was encouraged to be an actress and made callbacks, she turned away from it. She kind of filled the supportive role even when she was no longer with Bob.
In the end, I gave the book four stars because it is very interesting (sometimes you have to skim to find the good stuff but it’s definitely there). It offers a unique look at Bob Dylan and contains some pearls of wisdom and insight about life in general. I especially liked how human Dylan appears through Rotolo’s eyes. So often, he is seen as an enigma, a God, some untouchable, unknowable genius, etc. But this book shows him as a romantic, a heartbroken lover, an image-conscious artist, a sensitive friend…a human.
Maybe one problem is that the book seems to be attempting too much. Is it Suze’s story? Dylan’s story? Greenwich Village’s story? The story of the sixties? Obviously they all overlap and each could and should appear in the story of the others, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear focus. At any given time, the focus is on one or another, with the others making little “cameos”. This lack of focus may have contributed to the overall chaotic feeling of the book. One thing is for sure--the subtitle of the book, “A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties”, is not completely representative of the book’s contents.
One thing I found very interesting is that Rotolo mentions several times that she didn’t want to be the “supportive woman behind the great man”. She says she wanted to create her own success, separate from her role as the musician’s girlfriend. But isn’t it ironic that the jobs she did most often were things like building stage props and being in charge of sound or lighting for plays? Even when she was encouraged to be an actress and made callbacks, she turned away from it. She kind of filled the supportive role even when she was no longer with Bob.
In the end, I gave the book four stars because it is very interesting (sometimes you have to skim to find the good stuff but it’s definitely there). It offers a unique look at Bob Dylan and contains some pearls of wisdom and insight about life in general. I especially liked how human Dylan appears through Rotolo’s eyes. So often, he is seen as an enigma, a God, some untouchable, unknowable genius, etc. But this book shows him as a romantic, a heartbroken lover, an image-conscious artist, a sensitive friend…a human.
January 25, 2025
Rotolo is more than just the woman on the cover of Bob Dylan’s Freewheeling album. Published in 2008, her memoir is a thoughtful look back at a fascinating time and place: New York City in the 1960s. In addition to her relationship with Dylan, which began when she was just 17 and he a 19-year-old folk music newbie, she recounts things like her childhood as a red-diaper baby, her trip to Cuba at a time when Americans were forbidden to travel to that country, and her various jobs in the emerging Off Off Broadway theater world. I’ve had this book on my shelf for 15 years and am glad the movie A Complete Unknown inspired me to finally read it.
July 5, 2008
I suppose the die hard Dylan fans amongst you will want to read this, but so far I'm finding it kind of dull. I'm still in the early pages, but I'm surprised. I'm a huge fan of Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters, and Hettie Jones' How I Became Hettie Jones, and I was hoping this would be just as good. We'll see.
Update: I didn't finish it. I had to return it to the library, and felt no urgency to finish it by the due date, which I think reflects the lack of urgency in both the writing and the story itself. Having grown up in NY during the sixties, I have a fondness for books that evoke the fifties and sixties, when Manhattan was a reasonably interesting place to live. I like reading about these lives that were going parallel to mine, as if in some separate universe. But I found Rotolo's writing syntactically bland and took very little pleasure in her descriptions of place. If I ever come across the book again, I might give it another shot, but only if there's nothing else to read. I'm giving it two stars because of content.
Update: I didn't finish it. I had to return it to the library, and felt no urgency to finish it by the due date, which I think reflects the lack of urgency in both the writing and the story itself. Having grown up in NY during the sixties, I have a fondness for books that evoke the fifties and sixties, when Manhattan was a reasonably interesting place to live. I like reading about these lives that were going parallel to mine, as if in some separate universe. But I found Rotolo's writing syntactically bland and took very little pleasure in her descriptions of place. If I ever come across the book again, I might give it another shot, but only if there's nothing else to read. I'm giving it two stars because of content.
April 10, 2008
So, thanks to H and L, I managed to get a reviewer's copy of Suze Rotolo's new memoir "A Freewheelin' Time" and devoured it over the weekend. As Todd Haynes says on the back, this is a welcome perspective - finally, the voice of a woman at the epicenter of the 60's folk scene, speaking strongly and warmly and passionately about what she saw and what happened.
So what prompted this amazing book? Why, after years of silence did she finally open up? In the "Acknowledgments" section at the end of the book she thanks Jeff Rosen who interviewed her for "No Direction Home" and says that he "opened the door to the past and gently led [her] through it." And so, in addition to my deep gratitude to Suze for opening up her life, some thanks also goes to Mr. Rosen.
She does an excellent job of describing her childhood, her family, and life as a "red diaper baby" in Queens during the 40's and 50's. And she's able to weave all of that into her time in the Village, her time with Bob, and her life after Bob. She comes into focus as a real person with a poetic, but not naive voice. Her descriptions of life as a woman in a circle of artists - her frustration at being called a "chick" and treated like a "guitar string" on Bob's guitar - are amazingly accurate. The irony of life for women, during Civil Rights, being treated as second class even among progressives (folksingers, artists, etc.), is acutely observed.
Her personal political journey is fascinatingly told as well - from the child of Communists reading "The God Who Failed" on the subway, to her thoughts about repression of artists under both capitalist and communist systems once she visits Prague and Cuba.
The media is probably going to jump on a few key passages - namely the three paragraphs where she describes her pregnancy, and subsequent abortion of Bob's child. This occurred after she moved out of Bob's West Fourth Street apartment and she was living on Avenue B. Some early news reports suggested that she was going to shy away from addressing this directly, perhaps saying simply that she "lost" the child. However, the copy I have, doesn't dodge the issue at all. But like other sensitive topics in the book it's handled delicately.
She describes Dylan, upon first meeting him, as "funny, engaging, intense, and.. persistent" and that those words completely describe him - only their order would shift depending on the situation. Sharp observations like this are throughout the book - she sees and feels keenly, then writes it well.
The book is full of great, rich, stories - stolen moments. Dylan and Suze going to MOMA to see Guernica. How Suze and Terri Thal smoothed out Dylan's theft of Von Ronk's version of "Rising Sun." The route of their favorite walk home through the village - past Zito's bakery for late night bread.
Other interesting tid-bits for Dylan-o-philes include:
* Ian Tyson giving Dylan pot for the first time.
* Watching Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV in her Avenue B apartment with Dylan and her sister Carla, then going to see Lenny Bruce a few days later - hoping he'd have some answers, some way to make sense of things - and realizing he didn't.
* The way she describes her realization that Baez and Dylan were having an affair - and the pain of private events being made public.
* The story of her time in Italy, why she went, how she felt, and excerpts from the often funny, very heartfelt letters Dylan sent her while there.
* Stories of her and Dylan's friendships with other Village folks, including Dave Von Ronk (and wife Terri), Noel Stookey, Paul Clayton, Mell and Lillian Bailey, Phil Ochs.. with cameos by Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Odetta, and the list goes on.
Its not perfect by any means - sometimes the stories jump around a bit too much, or the descriptions are a bit perfunctory, or the focus is too much on her (ignoring for example her sister's record collection and efforts to promote Bob to Robert Shelton and others - described in Heylin's Behind the Shades). But that's all understandable - its her story after all.
The book folds perfectly into Chronicles and Positively Fourth Street - providing a counterpoint, a fresh voice - full of strength and warmth and wisdom. It tells a story we haven't heard before, but needed to all along.
So what prompted this amazing book? Why, after years of silence did she finally open up? In the "Acknowledgments" section at the end of the book she thanks Jeff Rosen who interviewed her for "No Direction Home" and says that he "opened the door to the past and gently led [her] through it." And so, in addition to my deep gratitude to Suze for opening up her life, some thanks also goes to Mr. Rosen.
She does an excellent job of describing her childhood, her family, and life as a "red diaper baby" in Queens during the 40's and 50's. And she's able to weave all of that into her time in the Village, her time with Bob, and her life after Bob. She comes into focus as a real person with a poetic, but not naive voice. Her descriptions of life as a woman in a circle of artists - her frustration at being called a "chick" and treated like a "guitar string" on Bob's guitar - are amazingly accurate. The irony of life for women, during Civil Rights, being treated as second class even among progressives (folksingers, artists, etc.), is acutely observed.
Her personal political journey is fascinatingly told as well - from the child of Communists reading "The God Who Failed" on the subway, to her thoughts about repression of artists under both capitalist and communist systems once she visits Prague and Cuba.
The media is probably going to jump on a few key passages - namely the three paragraphs where she describes her pregnancy, and subsequent abortion of Bob's child. This occurred after she moved out of Bob's West Fourth Street apartment and she was living on Avenue B. Some early news reports suggested that she was going to shy away from addressing this directly, perhaps saying simply that she "lost" the child. However, the copy I have, doesn't dodge the issue at all. But like other sensitive topics in the book it's handled delicately.
She describes Dylan, upon first meeting him, as "funny, engaging, intense, and.. persistent" and that those words completely describe him - only their order would shift depending on the situation. Sharp observations like this are throughout the book - she sees and feels keenly, then writes it well.
The book is full of great, rich, stories - stolen moments. Dylan and Suze going to MOMA to see Guernica. How Suze and Terri Thal smoothed out Dylan's theft of Von Ronk's version of "Rising Sun." The route of their favorite walk home through the village - past Zito's bakery for late night bread.
Other interesting tid-bits for Dylan-o-philes include:
* Ian Tyson giving Dylan pot for the first time.
* Watching Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV in her Avenue B apartment with Dylan and her sister Carla, then going to see Lenny Bruce a few days later - hoping he'd have some answers, some way to make sense of things - and realizing he didn't.
* The way she describes her realization that Baez and Dylan were having an affair - and the pain of private events being made public.
* The story of her time in Italy, why she went, how she felt, and excerpts from the often funny, very heartfelt letters Dylan sent her while there.
* Stories of her and Dylan's friendships with other Village folks, including Dave Von Ronk (and wife Terri), Noel Stookey, Paul Clayton, Mell and Lillian Bailey, Phil Ochs.. with cameos by Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Odetta, and the list goes on.
Its not perfect by any means - sometimes the stories jump around a bit too much, or the descriptions are a bit perfunctory, or the focus is too much on her (ignoring for example her sister's record collection and efforts to promote Bob to Robert Shelton and others - described in Heylin's Behind the Shades). But that's all understandable - its her story after all.
The book folds perfectly into Chronicles and Positively Fourth Street - providing a counterpoint, a fresh voice - full of strength and warmth and wisdom. It tells a story we haven't heard before, but needed to all along.
February 22, 2024
Suze Rotolo has written a book based in part on her relationship with Bob Dylan, as well as one that recaptures the essence of a decade (the 1960s) that set in train both progressive-revolutionary and reactionary forces that transformed the world in ways that affect it to this day. Though I was born in the 1960s (in fact, the same year that the Beatles came to the U.S.), my memories of it are largely personal and seen as vignettes and random images as one would find in a photo album. So, I am thankful for memoirs such as this which help to give me a more solid sense of what that time was really like. For Rotolo, "the sixties were an era that spoke a language of inquiry and curiosity and rebelliousness against the stifling and repressive political and social culture of the decade that preceded it. The new generation causing all the fuss was not driven by the market: we had something to say, not something to sell."
Rotolo shares with the reader much of her early life in Queens as the youngest child of 2 leftist parents, her subsequent escape while in her teens (following the premature death of her father, an artist by training) to Greenwich Village, where she took in the burgeoning folk music scene and first met Bob Dylan early in 1961. It is a rich, fascinating, and well-told memoir. This is a book to be savored and read again when one seeks reaffirmation in the possibility of helping build a more open, just, and better society through artistic expression.
Rotolo shares with the reader much of her early life in Queens as the youngest child of 2 leftist parents, her subsequent escape while in her teens (following the premature death of her father, an artist by training) to Greenwich Village, where she took in the burgeoning folk music scene and first met Bob Dylan early in 1961. It is a rich, fascinating, and well-told memoir. This is a book to be savored and read again when one seeks reaffirmation in the possibility of helping build a more open, just, and better society through artistic expression.
June 8, 2008
In her book American Bloomsbury, Susan Cheever writes about the amazing proximity in time and place of the great writers and thinkers who came together in Concord, Massachusetts, in the 19th Century—Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and others. She notes that such “genius clusters” seem to occur regularly throughout history. They represent every area of human endeavor, including the arts, philosophy, science, politics and social change. In A Freewheelin’ Time, Suze Rotolo documents just such a phenomenon, which occurred in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s. The music that came out of that time and place moved and inspired a whole generation—my generation—and significantly changed the world.
I was 13 in 1962, when I went to New York for the first time. My cousin Glenn gave me some albums by Joan Baez, and I was stunned by the power of her voice and words of her songs. Later, my frame of reference was shaped by the songs of Bob Dylan, Paul Stookey, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and many others whose names I didn’t know at the time and probably still don’t. I fell in love with the folk music of Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkle, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger. At the same time—without associating it with the music I loved—I always yearned to see the place with the seemingly magical name of “Greenwich Village.” I had a powerful sense of having just missed something, but I didn’t know what.
Suze Rotolo’s book finally helped me understand the mystique of that time and place. By the time I finally went back to New York and got to visit the famous neighborhood, everything had changed. It was 1972, and the poets and minstrels had moved on. It was August, and the temperature and humidity were both in the 90s. I saw a man in an overcoat sleeping on the street. I was too late. I went back to the west coast, to a culture I understood, and all these years, I wondered what I’d missed. Now--thanks to this remarkably forthright chronicle--I know.
I was 13 in 1962, when I went to New York for the first time. My cousin Glenn gave me some albums by Joan Baez, and I was stunned by the power of her voice and words of her songs. Later, my frame of reference was shaped by the songs of Bob Dylan, Paul Stookey, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and many others whose names I didn’t know at the time and probably still don’t. I fell in love with the folk music of Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkle, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger. At the same time—without associating it with the music I loved—I always yearned to see the place with the seemingly magical name of “Greenwich Village.” I had a powerful sense of having just missed something, but I didn’t know what.
Suze Rotolo’s book finally helped me understand the mystique of that time and place. By the time I finally went back to New York and got to visit the famous neighborhood, everything had changed. It was 1972, and the poets and minstrels had moved on. It was August, and the temperature and humidity were both in the 90s. I saw a man in an overcoat sleeping on the street. I was too late. I went back to the west coast, to a culture I understood, and all these years, I wondered what I’d missed. Now--thanks to this remarkably forthright chronicle--I know.
May 5, 2011
Okay, I'm nostalgic about the Sixties. I enjoyed this memoir of Greenwich Village in the early 1960's--despite the cover photo and Rotolo's well-known status as Bob Dylan's girlfriend at the time, she writes about so much more than Dylan. This book covers, among other things, the Red Scare and its effect on left-wing families; the folk revival; experimental theater; the Cuban Revolution and the ban on travel to Cuba; and Rotolo's childhood and early adulthood. It's very engaging, and near the end she states a truth that needs to be stated now more than ever: the Sixties wasn't just about sex drugs and rock and roll, it was about making a better world.
February 19, 2018
While there's much mention of Bob Dylan, this is basically an autobiography by his one-time girlfriend, Suze Rotolo. It is as well an homage to the 60s scene in Greenwich Village and to youth itself.
Rotolo writes without apparent conceit, conveying the sense that hers is a true self-portrait--not deeply analytical, but true, even familiar. I've known persons like Suze Rotolo.
I read much of Rotolo's story aloud with Chelsea Rectanus, owner of a local used bookstore--a pleasant shared experience.
Rotolo writes without apparent conceit, conveying the sense that hers is a true self-portrait--not deeply analytical, but true, even familiar. I've known persons like Suze Rotolo.
I read much of Rotolo's story aloud with Chelsea Rectanus, owner of a local used bookstore--a pleasant shared experience.
July 1, 2009
This is such an elegant and bittersweet book. The girl we all wanted to be, on the arm of Bob Dylan in the Village, is a deeply thoughtful and very private person. She describes the music, the vibe, the life of the Sixties exquisitely. She is gentle with her memories of Dylan, whom she loved and who loved her, and is careful about what she shares.
Her wrestling with her feminist feelings before there was a vocabulary for that, when women were "chicks", is quite powerful.
Her wrestling with her feminist feelings before there was a vocabulary for that, when women were "chicks", is quite powerful.
January 24, 2021
I really enjoyed this memoir written by Suze Rotolo, a close friend of Bob Dylan's, talking about their life (and more specifically her life) in the 1960s. It was interesting hearing some behind the scenes action of those days, the interactions with Andy Warhol, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the New York Subway Strike. A really good read for anyone interested in those times or the music of that period.
February 19, 2025
3.5 stars?? I loved sylvie from ‘A Complete Unknown’, which was basically based off of Suze, so i felt quite compelled to read this.
“The only claim I make for writing a memoir of that time is that it may not be factual, but it is true.” I love this quote so much bc it acknowledges that while memories are inherently subjective, they still hold important feelings and insights that hold truth to them. Suze really had such a messy relationship/situationship w bob but honestly i feel her✊🏼 beyond her relationship with him tho, she was a baddie. Srsly tho, she was involved in so much civil rights activism and other protests during the 60s and 70s era. She rlly wanted to be remembered as more than just “a string on Dylan’s guitar”, and through this memoir she gets to tell her story — all of it. And yeah, bob is a pretty big part of it, but she gets to tell the story on her own terms and i feel like she accomplished what she set out to do.
“The only claim I make for writing a memoir of that time is that it may not be factual, but it is true.” I love this quote so much bc it acknowledges that while memories are inherently subjective, they still hold important feelings and insights that hold truth to them. Suze really had such a messy relationship/situationship w bob but honestly i feel her✊🏼 beyond her relationship with him tho, she was a baddie. Srsly tho, she was involved in so much civil rights activism and other protests during the 60s and 70s era. She rlly wanted to be remembered as more than just “a string on Dylan’s guitar”, and through this memoir she gets to tell her story — all of it. And yeah, bob is a pretty big part of it, but she gets to tell the story on her own terms and i feel like she accomplished what she set out to do.
August 6, 2023
Suze Rotolo’s memoir of life in Greenwich Village in the early 60s, including her time with Dylan and their legendary photograph on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, gives the perspective of the folkie scene from both an outsider and an insider. While Suze was not a musician herself, and often explains how she felt uncomfortable with the fame associated with being known as “Dylan’s girl” – as well with Dylan's own lies and exaggerations in both his personal life and as a part of his public persona – she was also an insider in the life of the Village, living as an artist and theatrical stagehand while being friends with Dave van Ronk, John Lee Hooker, Phil Ochs, and countless others.
The result is a memoir that avoids two major pitfalls: fawning over the legends (and perpetuating their myth status) and being a “tell-all take-down.” Suze could have easily done either, but instead opts for a straightforward recollection that gives an honest assessment of the scene, the players, and her own life in the context of both. Some of the most interesting chapters actually occur outside the Village (and away from Dylan) when Suze becomes one of the first Americans to protest the travel ban to Cuba by flying there via London and Prague with a handful of other protesters.
The memoir is 369 pages, but I wish it were two pages shorter. The epilogue, titled “Endnotes,” suggests that those in the Village were outsiders and countercultural rebels, while spinning the Boomer myth that their generation was different because, as Suze concludes, “we had something to say, not something to sell.”
Nonsense. To quote Lily Tomlin from her second album: “Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.” (Side note: Tomlin was from the Silent Generation, hence being a bit more honest about the era that younger people, even titling one of her tv specials “SOLD OUT.”) Boomers weren’t selling their message in the 60s because they were too young to have buyers, so they only appeared to have integrity. As soon as they came of age in the 1980s, they were selling that message as much, if not more, as previous generations. And some DID have buyers in the 60s (Dylan among them). Even Suze describes how she was making jewelry in the hope of being picked up by a larger distributor, but they weren’t buying.
And those kids who went to the Village in the 50s and 60 did so precisely because it was the hotspot for their culture. Yes, it was a counterculture, but those are bound by the same hegemonic structures as the mainstream culture. One didn’t randomly “end up” there; it was the place for the “cool” ones (a word Suze uses) and had every bit as rigid a caste system as the dominant culture. The true outsiders were the ones stuck in rural Nebraska (or Hibbing, MN) and DIDN’T go to the Village.
I have a feeling those last two pages were a requirement by the publisher. (“Hey Suze, give us a couple concluding pages that connect your story to the larger generational narrative,” etc.) They are the only pages in the memoir that don’t ring true because they fall into the trap of 60s myth-making. Even so, this is a great read, and I learned much about both Dylan’s early folk career and the Village scene in the early 60s.
The result is a memoir that avoids two major pitfalls: fawning over the legends (and perpetuating their myth status) and being a “tell-all take-down.” Suze could have easily done either, but instead opts for a straightforward recollection that gives an honest assessment of the scene, the players, and her own life in the context of both. Some of the most interesting chapters actually occur outside the Village (and away from Dylan) when Suze becomes one of the first Americans to protest the travel ban to Cuba by flying there via London and Prague with a handful of other protesters.
The memoir is 369 pages, but I wish it were two pages shorter. The epilogue, titled “Endnotes,” suggests that those in the Village were outsiders and countercultural rebels, while spinning the Boomer myth that their generation was different because, as Suze concludes, “we had something to say, not something to sell.”
Nonsense. To quote Lily Tomlin from her second album: “Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.” (Side note: Tomlin was from the Silent Generation, hence being a bit more honest about the era that younger people, even titling one of her tv specials “SOLD OUT.”) Boomers weren’t selling their message in the 60s because they were too young to have buyers, so they only appeared to have integrity. As soon as they came of age in the 1980s, they were selling that message as much, if not more, as previous generations. And some DID have buyers in the 60s (Dylan among them). Even Suze describes how she was making jewelry in the hope of being picked up by a larger distributor, but they weren’t buying.
And those kids who went to the Village in the 50s and 60 did so precisely because it was the hotspot for their culture. Yes, it was a counterculture, but those are bound by the same hegemonic structures as the mainstream culture. One didn’t randomly “end up” there; it was the place for the “cool” ones (a word Suze uses) and had every bit as rigid a caste system as the dominant culture. The true outsiders were the ones stuck in rural Nebraska (or Hibbing, MN) and DIDN’T go to the Village.
I have a feeling those last two pages were a requirement by the publisher. (“Hey Suze, give us a couple concluding pages that connect your story to the larger generational narrative,” etc.) They are the only pages in the memoir that don’t ring true because they fall into the trap of 60s myth-making. Even so, this is a great read, and I learned much about both Dylan’s early folk career and the Village scene in the early 60s.
June 25, 2012
I became fascinated with Bob Dylan, then even more fascinated with whom he was affiliated. I wanted to read Suze Rotolo's memoir to break down the myth of the legendary Dylan; I wanted to see what made him tick, I was curious to see what their relationship was like. As I read on, I began to relate more to Suze, as a woman understanding her position and the frustrations she dealt with during her time in her relationship, in her environment, etc. I'm not going to lie though -- I was hoping to find out a little more about a Bob Dylan that I didn't know. Instead, she gives more insight into what it was like living in the sixties, which many people generations after (including myself) see as being a magical time, and then Dylan naturally flows into the picture. He was just part of the sixties environment, before/during his rise to fame...and Greenwich Village, being surrounded by the radiating creative energy from artists and musicians that inhabited the area...Now the sixties to me is like a precious artifact behind glass, forever someplace I wish I could experience during its prime.
March 3, 2025
This was an enjoyable read. It covers much the same territory as Dave Van Ronk's recent memoir. But, of course, this one was written by Dylan's girlfriend of the time. (She's the one on the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.) There's some new insight into Dylan's rise in the early 60s, and insight into his personality, but, in many ways, Rotolo doesn't reveal much that is new. (In her defense, she seems to respect Dylan's privacy, or better said, the privacy of the relationship the two of them once had, so she is pretty restrained in her descriptions of their lives together, and of his shortcomings.)
Basically, I love reading about this period, she was there, and she tells good story.
Basically, I love reading about this period, she was there, and she tells good story.
August 9, 2017
I was struck by the charity of Suze Rotolo's reflections on Bob Dylan. She strips her reminiscence of self-aggrandizement and tabloid-minded sensationalism. While Bob Dylan is still remains a bit of a mystery in the end (he was really that aloof all along), Rotolo remembers the little moments that sheds light on the Artist as a Young Man: the sweet love letters, the nights of cigarettes, coffee and conversation, and his confident, burning ambition.
But this book is more than "Bob and Me." It is a portrait of a Young Woman as an Artist, a story of an Idealist, and an engaging document of the spirit and characters of Greenwich Village in the 1960s.
By the way, did you know that Bob Dylan and Bill Crosby crossed circles in the Greenwich Village cafe scene of the 60s?
But this book is more than "Bob and Me." It is a portrait of a Young Woman as an Artist, a story of an Idealist, and an engaging document of the spirit and characters of Greenwich Village in the 1960s.
By the way, did you know that Bob Dylan and Bill Crosby crossed circles in the Greenwich Village cafe scene of the 60s?
January 2, 2025
Suze Rotolo’s A Freewheelin' Time chronicles her life before, during, and after becoming Bob Dylan’s muse. Did I pick this one up ahead of seeing “A Complete Unknown”? Absolutely. Also to better understand the era when Dylan rocketed to stardom. I loved it as much as Elle Fanning’s portrayal of Sylvie Russo (a renamed version of Suze).
December 18, 2022
Peter Mackenzie, whose parents opened their home to Bob Dylan when he first came to Greenwich Village, recommended I read this. I’m glad he did.
Suze Rotolo was girl clinging to a freezing Bob Dylan on the album cover for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. They were a couple for about four years.
Suze herself exposed the emptiness and lack of ambition, drive and curiosity so often found in red diaper babies, but I was not that interested in her or her fragilities.
What I did learn from Suze’s account was what life was like for Dylan and his contemporaries in the first half of the 1960’s in NYC. I was surprised by the number of musicians I was following at the time who were mentioned in her book.
Learning about a culture I had only had glimpses of when I was in high school and the first two years of college made the book worthwhile. Getting through the naïveté and immaturity of Suze’s outlook caused some difficulty.
Suze Rotolo was girl clinging to a freezing Bob Dylan on the album cover for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. They were a couple for about four years.
Suze herself exposed the emptiness and lack of ambition, drive and curiosity so often found in red diaper babies, but I was not that interested in her or her fragilities.
What I did learn from Suze’s account was what life was like for Dylan and his contemporaries in the first half of the 1960’s in NYC. I was surprised by the number of musicians I was following at the time who were mentioned in her book.
Learning about a culture I had only had glimpses of when I was in high school and the first two years of college made the book worthwhile. Getting through the naïveté and immaturity of Suze’s outlook caused some difficulty.
July 8, 2025
For Suze Rotolo there was no escaping the fact that she would be almost universally described as Bob Dylan's girlfriend on the cover of the Freewheelin' album. This memoir doesn't try to avoid that, but makes it clear that Rotolo was very much her own woman at each step of the mythologized story. Lots of snapshots of life in the music scene that catapulted Dylan to stardom. Her voice is welcoming and warm. The structure jumps all over, but that's unlikely to bother anyone who wants to dig into the realities behind the image.
March 7, 2021
Suze Rotolo, what a wondrous woman she was :’-) The way she wrote was sincere, vivid, and so beautiful. I’m very thankful that she shared such an intimate glimpse into her life. The world’s gotta know she was so much more than Bob Dylan’s old lover.
December 21, 2019
I grew up more in the absent Bob Dylan years, when he largely disappeared from the scene and also refrained from deeply reading album credits, so grew up not knowing how many of my favorite songs were Dylan's. (I was even a bit of a Beatle-basher, learned from a brother who was a heavy metal guy like Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy; we were Stones partisans and words were less important than great guitar work in those frantic and deeply narcissistic late 70s and early 80s.) ) I even remember reading the Doonesbury cartoon about Jimmy Thudpucker who is outside with his guitar while Dylan is inside in the jacuzzi and Thudpucker says, "Hey man, this article is calling you an Authentic American voice." Dylan's voice comes back, "Heck man, I only wanted it to rhyme." The rejoinder from Thudpucker's thoughts, "Now he tells us..." is exactly what I thought of Dylan.
It took me a few years to realize my error; thanks be to the Grateful Dead. So sure, I had seen the record cover "Freewheelin Bob Dylan" at friends houses but never wondered who that woman was. As a matter of fact, I believe I assumed she was a model and the picture was just taken for the cover.
Again, took me a few years to discover my error (you'd think I'd learn) and learned a bit about Dylan's girlfriend Suze Rotolo from others from those early days discussing him. Then I saw recently that she had passed away and that she had written a book about the years with Dylan and with the folkies in the Village and finally read it.
Well done Suze. Well written in an informal way, low on the hazy admiration for those who later became wealthy and famous and clear on the everydayness of the life of these Bohemians. I see from some other reviews that those readers who scanned it for juicy tidbits of Dylan were disappointed. Those type of readers seem to be the ones that looked for and found God in his lyrics. Spare me.
A successful life it seems, one where she contributed to her times and recorded them clearly as well.
A must for anyone who really wants to understand how the 1960s (and everything after that) came to be and are not trying to find the definitive Dylan bio but instead want to read about a woman (who happened to know him) who simply lived.
Rest in peace Suze.
It took me a few years to realize my error; thanks be to the Grateful Dead. So sure, I had seen the record cover "Freewheelin Bob Dylan" at friends houses but never wondered who that woman was. As a matter of fact, I believe I assumed she was a model and the picture was just taken for the cover.
Again, took me a few years to discover my error (you'd think I'd learn) and learned a bit about Dylan's girlfriend Suze Rotolo from others from those early days discussing him. Then I saw recently that she had passed away and that she had written a book about the years with Dylan and with the folkies in the Village and finally read it.
Well done Suze. Well written in an informal way, low on the hazy admiration for those who later became wealthy and famous and clear on the everydayness of the life of these Bohemians. I see from some other reviews that those readers who scanned it for juicy tidbits of Dylan were disappointed. Those type of readers seem to be the ones that looked for and found God in his lyrics. Spare me.
A successful life it seems, one where she contributed to her times and recorded them clearly as well.
A must for anyone who really wants to understand how the 1960s (and everything after that) came to be and are not trying to find the definitive Dylan bio but instead want to read about a woman (who happened to know him) who simply lived.
Rest in peace Suze.
January 11, 2025
After seeing A Complete Unknown last week, I started spiraling down a Bob Dylan rabbit hole. I became completely enamored with the story and when I found out that “Sylvie” (AKA Suze) had written a memoir of her own, I knew I had to read it. When watching the movie, I was fascinated by her and her relationship with Bob. I imagined it wasn’t easy being the girl alongside one of the biggest stars in history as he rose to fame.
This memoir captured glimpses of what that was like for Suze. There’s no doubt that Suze and Dylan were completely in love with eachother. Although Suze doesn’t want to take credit for being the center of many of Dylan’s songs, it’s clear that she was. One of my favorite parts of this book was getting to read the letters that he sent her while she was in Italy. For example —
“You sent me a great shirt—I wear it in the house…but not outside cause I don’t want no one to see me in it before you see me in it—please come back and see me in the shirt—then I’ll be able to wear it outside.”
Can we please bring back this level of yearning?
One of the cracks in Bob and Suze’s relationship came from her desire to be seen as something more than just “the chick who stood by Bob Dylan,” —
“I couldn’t define it, but the word chick made me feel as if I weren’t a whole being. I was a possession of this person, Bob, who was the center of attention—that was supposed to be my validation.”
This memoir shows that that label was far from the truth. Suze lived such an impressive life in so many ways that didn’t involve Bob Dylan. From growing up as a “red diaper baby”, to surviving her own family trauma, to traveling the world, to challenging the status quo (and the American government lol) and fighting for what was right, Suze lived such a storied life and I’m glad I got to read about some of it.
This memoir captured glimpses of what that was like for Suze. There’s no doubt that Suze and Dylan were completely in love with eachother. Although Suze doesn’t want to take credit for being the center of many of Dylan’s songs, it’s clear that she was. One of my favorite parts of this book was getting to read the letters that he sent her while she was in Italy. For example —
“You sent me a great shirt—I wear it in the house…but not outside cause I don’t want no one to see me in it before you see me in it—please come back and see me in the shirt—then I’ll be able to wear it outside.”
Can we please bring back this level of yearning?
One of the cracks in Bob and Suze’s relationship came from her desire to be seen as something more than just “the chick who stood by Bob Dylan,” —
“I couldn’t define it, but the word chick made me feel as if I weren’t a whole being. I was a possession of this person, Bob, who was the center of attention—that was supposed to be my validation.”
This memoir shows that that label was far from the truth. Suze lived such an impressive life in so many ways that didn’t involve Bob Dylan. From growing up as a “red diaper baby”, to surviving her own family trauma, to traveling the world, to challenging the status quo (and the American government lol) and fighting for what was right, Suze lived such a storied life and I’m glad I got to read about some of it.
July 24, 2009
I have to admit, I only read this because it was cheap and I wanted to suck what juicy marrow I could about Dylan from it. There were a few anecdotes that brought to light the fullness of the Dylan/Rotolo relationship by filling in the gaps left from all the biographies I've read about him. However, I skimmed through the endless ramblings of Rotolo, who through her own words, seems stuck in the idea of proving to the rest of the world, herself and possibly Dylan, that she was more than his girlfriend. I think this would have been obvious through the telling of her own stories but the "beat" language and need to "justify" herself as more than his girlfriend, took away from her interesting personal history. I am glad she told her story and maybe her need to "protect" Bobby kept her from divuldging the truth and complexity behind their years together or maybe the truth is, they weren't as complex as we would like them to be. Maybe they were just two teenagers in love during a time of historical significance. Either way, I think this book will sell simply to those neophyte's hungry for more information or insight into the myth, the legend and the man that is Bobby Dylan.
May 25, 2009
Don't read this book expecting dish on Bob Dylan. Suze Rotolo rises above that. This book is just what the subtitle purports: a history of a time (the early sixties) and a place (Greenwich Village). Rotolo was more than a "singer's chick" and she provides some interesting insight on that role. Unlike Pattie Boyd in Wonderful Tonight, Rotolo was uncomfortable in the role of muse and unconditional support to her man. She excuses no misbehavior by citing his talent or his demons. Rotolo's voice is strong and she was an interesting young woman in her own right. Consequently, this is a history of the art, theater, and politics of the era, as well as a history of Bob Dylan.
July 1, 2008
Because Suze Rotolo grew up in a family that supported the Communist party, it has always been assumed that she played an important role in influencing Dylan's social protest material, but there are very few details about this in the book. Rotolo states at one point that the autobiography is an "emotional" rather than a factual recollection of the time. The book does seem to get better when their relationship is troubled and especially after they break up. It takes Rotolo almost 300 pages to admit, like almost every other book out there about Dylan has stated, that he was basically a jerk.
August 26, 2009
It would have been alright if it wasn't full of so much clutter. Sentences were mostly of the run-on variety...and strangely phrased.
Rotolo also tends to riddle her writing with subtle Dylan references that end up sounding corny instead of poetic...like "we were both overly sensitive and needed shelter from the storm" or "Dylan was a painter searching for his palette." Also, how many times can you use "freewheelin'" as an adjective to describe yourself and the people you hung out with...in a single chapter? geesh.
Few good stories in there though.
Rotolo also tends to riddle her writing with subtle Dylan references that end up sounding corny instead of poetic...like "we were both overly sensitive and needed shelter from the storm" or "Dylan was a painter searching for his palette." Also, how many times can you use "freewheelin'" as an adjective to describe yourself and the people you hung out with...in a single chapter? geesh.
Few good stories in there though.
January 17, 2025
Picked up this book after I saw the movie, A Complete Unknown. This book was written 15 years before the movie. While I loved the movie, this book definitely gave a different perspective on the story. Suze comes across a lot more complex and interesting than in the movie. She had a very interesting life, met several interesting people and was a lot more political than in the movie. All this started when she was 17. Wow!! I’m a huge Dylan fan and I loved her perspective on the early 60’s. On the down side, it is definitely a memoir and the writing style is not great. RIP, Suze.
November 23, 2018
The merit of this book lies in the straight-up history of a specific era told by someone who was actually there. In painting her own landscape, Rotolo frees us from the caricature and idol-worship with which we have been bombarded elsewhere.
It is boots-on-the-ground authentic, unlike the biased memories left us by biographers, historians, journalists, celebrities, and other assorted merchants. Told by someone who "has something to say, not something to sell."
It is boots-on-the-ground authentic, unlike the biased memories left us by biographers, historians, journalists, celebrities, and other assorted merchants. Told by someone who "has something to say, not something to sell."
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