I've been a fan of the rock/pop group Queen for several years. Not a huge fan admittedly, but enough of a fan to buy some of their albums. I was always particularly intrigued by Queen front man Freddie Mercury, a man I consider to be one of the greatest entertainers of my generation. As soon as I heard that Peter Freestone, who acted as Freddie's Personal Assistant for the last twelve years of his life, had, with David Evans, written "the most intimate account of Mercury's life ever written" and revealed the "truth behind the scandalous rumours" I just had to have the book.
Freddie Mercury - an intimate memoir by the man who knew him best was sadly a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps I'm being unfair - maybe I should just say that the book didn't live up to my expectations.
As I read it, I felt as though it was assumed that I knew a lot more about Mercury and his life than I actually did. There were numerous detailed references to songs, videos, places and people I had never heard of. Probably the sort of things that a true Mercury fan would know as well as they know the back of their own hand, but for me a lot of the book seemed to go straight over my head. The author does include a "Cast List" of people at the front of the book, but to keep checking back every few pages was tedious in the extreme.
I so wanted to like this book, having admired Freddie for so many years, but sadly that wasn't the case. I loved the section of intimate colour photographs that showed Freddie the man rather than Freddie the performer. I revelled in the snippets of personal information about Mercury, learning about his generosity towards his friends, his love of Christmas, cats and of all things Japanese and I was fascinated to read about his various collections which included fine art, antique kimonos and boxes. Yet, having closed the book, I felt no better informed about Mercury than I did when I first opened it - in parts I found there was too much detail, in others too little. (I also became a little weary of the constant parodying of the phrase allegedly uttered by Queen Victoria, "we are not amused" to describe Freddie's reactions.)
I strongly felt that the author held back on some of the juicier details. Perhaps this was out of respect for the late Mercury, which, in itself, is something to be applauded rather than reviled. Yet, for whatever reasons, I didn't feel that Freestone revealed the whole Freddie Mercury, despite his acknowledgement in the introduction that he has "a responsibility to be as truthful as I can in portraying what Freddie went through both as an artist and as a man."
I'm sure that any real Queen fan would find this book a fascinating read. It is well written and, as I said earlier, has a lovely collection of personal photographs of Freddie at work and play. I can only say that I enjoyed some parts of the book considerably more than I did others, finding myself equally enraptured and bored by turns.
Publisher: Omnibus Press
ISBN: 0 7119 8674 6
Price: £9.95 p/b
Date Reviewed: June 2002
My Rating: 3/5
