A Freewheelin' Time

Book 84 of my 2016 Reading Challenge
read from October 03 - 23

A Freewheelin' Time: Greenwich Village in the Sixties, Bob Dylan and Me
by Suze Rotolo

Summary (via the book jacket)
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 backstory 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 State 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.

My Opinion
There were lots and lots and lots of names and it was hard to keep everyone straight.  It was also very vague for a memoir; assuming nobody forced the author to write this book, why write about something if the only people that will understand/appreciate the story are the people that already lived it?

She made a great point about our unrealistic standards for celebrities.  "Artists we admire aren't necessarily exemplary human beings just because they are exceptional in their chosen fields. Their art is the work offered for public consumption, and nothing else."

A Few Quotes from the Book
"[Bob Dylan] was funny, engaging, intense, and he was persistent. These words completely describe who he was throughout the time we were together; only the order of the words would shift depending on mood or circumstance."

"There were so many talented people who practiced their art form and sharpened their skills during the period of the Greenwich Village renaissance of the sixties. To become a legend or star wasn't always the point. Many did what they loved to do and became known for it far and wide, and others did what they loved to do and managed to make a living at it. Still others burned out and lost their way."