I just finished reading Suze Rotolo's A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. Rotolo is most famous for having had a complicated and inspiring relationship with Bob Dylan early in his career and for appearing with him arm in arm on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

Her autobiography is an easy read, and she chronicles not only her time in the Village in the early 60s, but also the trials of growing up the child of two communists in the era of blacklisting, and her post-Dylan trip to then-recently Communist Cuba for several months in 1964. It's interesting to read about a woman's life in the early 60s (I was glad to have recently experienced a visual touchstone of the early 60s in Mad Men) and the limitations that were part and parcel of daily life back then that are now in many ways foreign to us gals. When Suze was with Dylan, everyone expected she would merely be his shadow and have no career or creative pursuit of her own, and, among other things, she was subjected to his own rigid expectations of her looks and her second-class status.

While the book was mainly enjoyable to read, I'm not sure if I was expecting too much, but it was not heavy on details, in my opinion. I respect Rotolo's right to keep some things private, of course, but I also wondered at times why she was compelled to write a book if she wanted to keep so much to herself. Still, the book does give an outline of The Village as an exciting, creative place and also of Dylan as a charismatic but manipulative charmer. She also gives an interesting take on the corrosive effects of fame on individuals, those around them, and their relationships.

Growing up, my best friend and I were obsessed with reading.  We would spend time together whiling away the summer in the hammock in her yard, voraciously reading through any books that came our way.  My best friend's sister was 5 years older than us.  Although she was basically nerdy too, she was, by age association alone, more advanced and thus cooler than us.  It was through her that I discovered Sassy Magazine at the age of 11.

When I think about the major influences on my life, the bits that I've clung to and that have truly created and informed who I am today, the first thing I think of is The Beatles and the second is Sassy.  Sassy was utterly unique-- a teen girl's magazine that addressed feminism, individuality and intelligence.  Sassy gave voice to ideas I was too young to communicate and also acquainted me with relevant topics I had never read about before.  It bolstered my already- formed beliefs in honesty and creativity, and it gave me a sense of self-esteem in those dreaded middle school years.  It showed me there was a world outside of my preppy high school-- a world where there was more going on than wearing Gap Jeans and driving a Mercedes.

It was written by a small group of young women (and a few men) in their early and mid 20s who had clearly made it out of adolescence and had, in my eyes, made something of themselves.  They embraced the high and the low culturally and taught me to look with an even keener critical eye at popular culture.  They seemed to have complete freedom in their lives and spent their days, as I imagined it, meeting stars and adequately tearing them down or flirting with them, listening to music, gossiping amongst themselves and of course, writing.