A Freewheelin' Time

A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

By: Suze Rotolo

Narrated by: Christina Delaine

Suze Rotolo chronicles her coming of age in Greenwich Village during the 1960s and the early days of the folk music explosion, when Bob Dylan was finding his voice and she was his muse.

A shy girl from Queens, Suze was the daughter of Italian working-class communists, growing up at the dawn of the Cold War. It was the age of McCarthy, and Suze was an outsider in her neighborhood and at school. She found solace in poetry, art, and music - and in Greenwich Village, where she encountered like-minded and politically active friends. One hot July day in 1961, Suze met Bob Dylan, then a rising musician, at a concert at Riverside Church. She was 17, he was 20; they were both vibrant, curious, and inseparable. During the years they were together, Dylan transformed from an obscure folk singer into an uneasy spokesperson for a generation.

A Freewheelin' Time is a hopeful, intimate memoir of a vital movement at its most creative. It captures the excitement of youth, the heartbreak of young love, and the struggles for a brighter future in a time when everything seemed possible.

©2008 Suze Rotolo (P)2020 Tantor

An introverted artist's tale...

...of being adjacent to genius. Suze's story feels true, even if some of the details seem a little off: this is a personal history, and she tells it like she remembers it, not worried about tarnishing Dylan's reputation with her avowals of his less-than-perfect behavior. She is a sensitive person, and it shows in her writing, which relates her enthusiasm for art and music long before she meets Bob at age 17 (he is 20). Her life as a "red diaper baby" and developing artist in Greenwich Village is poignant on its own. Also interesting apart from Dylan is Suze's travel ban trips to Cuba in 1965ish.

There are probably better titles if you're looking for a deep dive into Dylan's early development, but Suze's story presents him as her first serious romance, and both of them act in very relatable, human ways.

a fascinating glimpse into the early 1960s

I loved this for a lot of reasons. The story is iconic and the way she told it as vignette across time worked well. The narrator was fantastic too. that can make all the difference.

Reading the great writing

The reader was ALWAYS Suze, and I was always in the room where it happened.

One of my favorite books in a long time.

Suze right with an open heart and an open mind. I followed her every move, from high school to the end of Greenwich Village just eight years behind couldn’t have enjoyed this more probably will buy the hard copy and read it again.

Good memories of a young woman during some interesting times.

Enjoyable autobiography of a young woman during very difficult and politically challenging times. I liked the story.