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4/7/08: Review: Suze Rotolo's "A Freewheelin' Time
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4-7-08, 3:21p - "A Freewheelin' Time" - Suze Rotolo

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.