Customer Reviews

Freddie Mercury : An Intimate Memoir by the Man Who Knew Him Best

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I will say, on the one hand, I am not a "die-hard" Queen fan, nor am I a "die-hard" Freddie Mercury fan. On the other hand, I do enjoy Queen's music.
The intent on buying this book, as in any biography, is to learn about the birth, career, and so on of the person in which the biography is based. That is not the case for this book.

At first, I was a bit dissapointed to discover that I would not learn about Freddie's birth, childhood, his early carrer, the founding of Queen as a band, as well as the birth of Queen's successes.

The book opens in 1979. That is when the author, Peter Freestone, began working for Queen; his original job was to make all the costume changes ready, during Queen's concert performances. His job descriptions, and responsibilities increased as time went on, and he began working solely for Freddie, himself.
'I was Freddie's chief cook and bottle washer, waiter, butler, secretary, cleaner..and agony aunt',writes Peter Freestone (quoting from the back cover, to give an insight as to the various responsibilities he had while employed by Mercury.)
'I travelled the world with him, I was with him at the highs and came through the lows...I acted as his bodyguard when needed and in the end, of course, I was one of his nurses.'

This is, indeed as the title states, an intimate look at the man who is Freddie Mercury, written by someone who became one of Freddie's closest, most trusted friends.
But, it only covers the 12 years that Freestone knew, and worked for him.
The last 2 chapters are especially touching. Peter Freestone was there when Freddie passed away, in 1991, and he shares a very personal account of the goings on before, during, and after his death.

What I learned, and appreciated about this intimate memoir, was how generous, and giving Freddie was. He was a loyal friend. He treated those who worked for him as close friends.

This book was excellent reading, for what it was; and what it was, was an intimate portrait, getting to know Freddie Mercury on a personal level (kinda like getting a backstage pass, so to speak), learning things that would be, otherwise private.

I truely enjoyed reading this book. I have, for many years been a Freddie Mercury fan and great admirer of his music. I was very apprehensive about buying this book, as most often books as such are rarely kind to the individual whom they are written about. But I felt that this book characterized Freddie Mercury more as a "person" rather than this huge "rock star" (which he was) and gave some delightful and colorfull insight into his daily life. The book is filled with many stories and incidents that depict his life style more in terms of his love of music, the band, his friends, his home and his cats. There are stories demonstrating his sensitive character, as well as his over all kindness and generousity. The fact that he was gay is secondary in this book, but it was not ignored either. If you are a Freddie Mercury fan I know you will enjoy this book very much. The photo section in the book is good...but for Freddie Mercury fans there are never enough pictures.

I myself have reread my book several times and enjoy it just as much each time, sometimes reading something I missed before. Peter Freestone remembered his friend kindly.

I have been a long time fan of Freddie's and when someone bought this for me I was thrilled and yet scared. Scared because I have tried on Many occasions to read biographies and failed miserably. Luckily this book was really well done and the topic was close to my heart.

The biography is written by a man who obviously loved Freddie and was very close to him in life and affected immenly by his personality. The book covers who Freddie really was to his friends, family and fans. It covers several albums and inspiration behind the music. It also covers his very sad sickness and I must admit I cried quite a bit.

I only have one qualm about this book and this is the time line as it jumps around quite a bit. But it is still followable and you can piece it together.

However in the end I was left feeling like I really did know Freddie and it gave me a warm feeling inside. Now when I listen to his music it brings back parts of the book to me and helps me build a better picture of the artist that Freddie really was.

Peter Freestone travelled over hill and dale with Freddie, and holds very little back in his account of life with one of rock's most "mercurial" stars.

Was he the man who knew Freddie best? He claims to be, and yet there are a number of fans and other authorities who feel he has claimed this intimate title without the back story to back it up. He knew the tragic star for eleven years, the last years before his death from AIDS, and he even became kind of a nurse to him, so there were elements of Freddie's life he had an eyewitness view of, and saw things no other mortal was ever privileged to see.

The music, the madness, the mirth, all are aspects that Peter isn't so hip on, but I dare any reader to go through this book right to the end and fail to shed a tear as the implications of Freddie's diagnosis begin to take root, and people begin to realize what this will mean to Freddie himself and to all those who loved Queen and rock music too. Peter F. was there, amd he writes sensitively about a difficult issue. Elsewhere his writing is humorous and sparkly, with a bit of an outsider edge, when he describes the ingenious ways he thought of to protect Freddie from the punters and paparazzi, but at the end you will feel your heart in your throat.

What Peter Freestone has done here is dispel and/or correct the many rumours and myths surrounding the life of Freddie Mercury. It is not a straightforward biography, but an intensely personal account of the last twelve years of Mercury's life, during which time Peter Freestone was his personal assistant and close friend. Freestone still remains fiercely loyal and wants us to understand the sort of devotion that those close to Mercury gave to him. He describes not just a rock star and a legend, but a fascinating man who was, by all accounts, one of a kind. Readers hoping to hear about Mercury's early life will be disappointed, but those wanting a behind-the-scenes, what-he-was-really-like account will love this book, as I did.

So many of the reviewers of this book seem to want everything spelled out in capital letters. Perhaps they have no nuances, no ability to read between the lines. To me, this is definitely a read between the lines book. This is not a capital letters book. As for some of the criticisms about it, they just seem to me to rather miss the point. Of course Peter isn't writing about what he doesn't know. He didn't grow up with Freddie. He was only with him in the role of personal assistant for the last decade or so of Freddie's life. For the people who complained that Peter said nothing at all about Freddie's childhood, it seems perfectly obvious to me that Freddie went WAY out of his way to obliterate entirely that portion of his life---with Peter and everyone else. If a person does that, use your common sense---why would he unless his childhood was something he was embarrassed and/or ashamed about? That's what I mean by reading between the lines. For example, on page 208 of my paperback version, Peter gives in my opinion all the information you need to know about Freddie's relationship with his immediate family when he writes: "...by maintaining a distance from them, he was also able to protect himself from some of their censure." Censure? That tells me volumes---that they disapproved of him in some ways. Probably, although I don't know this for a fact, because they were a religious family, they disapproved of his sexuality choices. It has been my experience that people who take organized religion very seriously are the most intolerant of those who choose to follow any path other that the one THEY have deemed correct. The Scientologists and the religious right are good examples of this.

Put yourself in Freddie's shoes: here's an inordinately creatively gifted little boy from a restrictive highly religious family, who is shipped off to a boarding school---in another country!---from the age of eight until the age of sixteen, with only short holidays once a year to see his family members. While at this boarding school, by Freddie's own admission, he was chased around by at least one schoolmaster. "Chased around"---that suggests sexual abuse to me. I know from my probation officer husband that frequently pedophiles congregate in those situations: Boy Scouts, boarding schools, all boys choirs, etc. Now before someone gets a hernia from misinterpreting what I just said, I don't say that ALL people involved in those very worthwhile organizations are pedophiles, just that statistically, pedophiles are going to prey where the targets are. So here's Freddie, shipped away from his family, who seem intolerant to me, to a rigid boarding school, which seems intolerant to me, to be on at least one occasion "chased" by a schoolmaster. That poor, poor little boy! And yet he must also have had some good from his family, because otherwise he would have cut them off entirely once he had the ability to do so. He never did.

Peter writes sensitively and insightfully about Freddie's behaviour. He does I think zero in on the fact that, for whatever reason, Freddie had to have some sort of drama to release his creativity. As Peter so well put it, "He had to sing angry." Anger, as any artist knows, is closely related to sex and sometimes even to inspiration. Most of the time this spark to creativity seems to have taken the form of Freddie picking arguments with lovers, although with the Bill Reid incident, physical violence erupted in the form of Bill actually biting Freddie on the hand. Ouch! Thank God Freddie dropped that idiot shortly thereafter.

With regard to people being bored to death by the careful descriptions of Freddie's Garden Lodge estate, again I think they are missing the point. The descriptions of the things Freddie bought and how he decorated tell you volumes about the man. His furnishings tell you Freddie was tasteful, picky, careful, unencumbered by a lack of money like most of us, and very much into controlling his environment. He was into creating pictures, whether they be of a song on a Queen show, or exactly the right painting on the right wall to bring out the exact mood he wanted. Peter shows us that Freddie was an artist and a collector, and nowhere in the book does he state this so well as when he writes something to the effect of, "Freddie was a collector, of things and of people."

The Freddie Mercury I came to know from reading this book was a highly gifted creative man, who had an enormous sexual appetite, a complete and utter devotion to the people who had proved themselves to be his real friends, and a man with absolutely no middles whatsoever. He was either embarrassed or ashamed of his origins and tried to hide them all his adult life, but not to the extent of denying his family once he became a huge star, although he was careful to keep his interactions with them on his own terms. He seemed to me to be extremely funny and extremely sensitive to slights both real and imagined. In addition, he seemed to be someone who went to great pains most of the time never to delve into his own psyche---and in order to avoid doing so, he surrounded himself with virtually non-stop activity. He seemed to have a gigantic capacity for fun and an equally gigantic capacity to be hurt. He hated confrontation and loved Mary Austin, Peter Freestone, Joe Fanelli, Jim Hutton, and all of his many cats, but each of them in deliberately separate and different ways. He seemed to me to be a master of compartmentalization, much like President John F. Kennedy, in that no one person, with the possible exception of Mary Austin, ever got the fully exposed, fully vulnerable Farrokh Borni Bulsara---pronounced FARR-oke. (That's the way his mother pronounced his name on the documentary I saw, and she should know.) And lastly, he seemed to me to be secretive, not necessarily because he was intrinsically that way, but because he learned through painful experience that that was how to protect himself.

I consider Peter Freestone's book to be excellent---as long as you can read between the lines.

Peter Freestone was Freddie Mercury's personal assistant from 1979 until Freddie's death in 1991. In that time, Peter found himself in the midst of many interesting scenarios, many of which are chronicled in his book. Peter's detailed account of the layout of Garden Lodge (Freddie's palatial home in the Kensington section of London) is especially noteworthy. Peter went around the world with Freddie, experienced many tours, witnessed many recording sessions and video shoots, met many people who came and went in Freddie's life, and was even with Freddie during his declining years. One can tell his loyalty to Freddie was steadfast. Even though I favor Jim Hutton's book over all other books written about Freddie Mercury, this one still gets my stamp of approval, and I would still recommend it.

Most complete biography of Freddie Mercury that I've seen. It really takes you inside Freddie's world. After reading it, I almost felt like I knew him. A must have for any Queen fan.

I found the book very informative about the man, Freddie Mercury, himself. When you are a fan you have alot of illusions as to what the person is like - I have to say this book shattered alot of these illusions. However, real facts made me see Mr. Mercury in a whole new light - some disappointing - some reassuring. Some questionable facts Mr. Freestone? You mentioned in the book that Freddie only had one godchild - wasn't he also godfather to Mary's first son? The final two chapters describing Freddie's decline made me cry. It was done very tastefully. However, I would have liked to have had maybe one more chapter explaining what went on in the months following Freddie's death - and what you are doing now. Overall an excellant book that I could not put down and I feel a must read for any Queen fan.

This book could easily have been condensed to 1/4 of the pages. Each event or memory written about goes on and on, and on... - impatient readers beware.

While the author does a great job of providing every little detail, it is amazing to believe that he could remember everything in this much living colour, and doubtful that at the time he carried around a notebook to record everything happening around him.

Generally the writing is poor to midland at best and it is obvious the author is not a professional writer. The book also could have been organised a bit better, for it is not chronological, nor are chapter headings or topics given.

The reader will sense that the author wrote this book out of memory for his friend, Freddie Mercury, rather than out of primary interest in the royalties. Overall, this book is for only the most fanatical of Queen fans and for those supremely interested in Freddie Mercury.