Busy Being Free: A Lifelong Romantic is Seduced by Solitude

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In any case, there are few singer/songwriters that come close to Joni. There are some fine lyricists, but they can't express their emotions and feelings in their voices as Joni could. There are some excellent voices but their lyrics are bland or trite or so terribly obscure that they aren't worth the effort. Forrest is a spirited, energetic writer, and this book, made up of short, vignette-like chapters, flits rapidly between time frames and anecdotes. It’s lively text, but can feel frenzied. Her insistence on comparing details in her present life with musings on her previous sexual encounters often jars. For a memoir that is meant to show the freedom she gained by being alone, I don’t understand why it was essentially just a list of every single interaction she’s ever had with a man, most of which are romanticised. Especially frustrating is that there’s no growth in this respect- she decides to be celibate for five years, and then needs her ex-husband to draw her out of her obsession with her new boy toy once she’s ready to date again. Plus there’s a weird focus on sex (seeing the moon while you shower turns you on? Hearing a new song or writing new material makes you rip off your pants? Seriously?) which feels a bit forced and over the top. Hitting themes of heartbreak, romance, celibacy and self-discovery, it's a testament to the power of putting yourself first. -- Alicia Lansom * REFINERY 29 * Barbara Fasano's BUSY BEING FREE is sheer perfection. This is a CD from a singer who has thrilledme from the first time I heard her. She is in full command and has established herself as one of the top singers of the day." ~ DavidKenney, WBAI "Everything Old Is New Again"

Busy Being Free, Emma Forrest (Hardback) Busy Being Free, Emma Forrest (Hardback)

Having said that, there were parts of the book that I really enjoyed and that also made me reflect on my own experiences in a new light. She redeemed herself for the fact I had to keep looking up words. In the words of revered jazz critic Ira Gitler, she “has it all, and then some … artistic, swinging, and superbly entertaining.”During the COVID crisis, times were tough for all of us, including performers. Like so many of her colleagues, Barbara streamed out the music from home. For her series of #72andsong, GO HERE.

Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest | Waterstones Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest | Waterstones

I was at the cemetery, admiring the flowers and books at the graves of Karl Marx and Douglas Adams. The thing found most painful about divorce is that there was no Mark spot at which to leave offerings…. Songs are the place to leave offerings by everything you lost and everything that stayed - and they’re the flowers too.” I’ve loved Emma Forrest since her first novel, Namedropper. This is perhaps her strongest book. Her writing has deepened and certain lines grabbed my heart. Still, I didn’t give it 5 stars because the ending seemed rushed to be tidied with a nice bow. And her ex-husband was straight up abusive at points but those behaviors are sort of described as just personality quirks. I don’t know if that’s how it was edited or if Emma has blinders about that. Still, I really loved reading Emma’s honest, messy, beautiful thoughts on motherhood, aging, sex and more. We met a variety of men during Busy Being Free – including both her worst sexual experiences, and then, later, some of her best – and despite their frequent appearance, Emma does a wonderful job of making the memoir about so much more than men.She doesn’t offer easy answers; there are none. The choices she makes for herself will no doubt appal some women and inspire others. But the fact that she has written about this midlife excavation with such ferocity and frankness is cause for celebration. I've really never read about sex and been so sharply reminded about how much it is tied up with the fundamentals of being a woman. This deep part of ourselves that somehow gets side-lined and subordinated by everything else. This ecstatic voice we so often manage to ignore. I can hear Emma's voice though, and it's woken me up -- Minnie Driver, author of Managing Expectations Mike from West Linn, OrI'm not sure that this is a fact ... more of a personal view. The lyrics here concern a woman who seems to yearn to be free and to be accomplishing that freedom. But her heart is "full and hollow, like a cactus tree". As I heard the lyrics the woman was very happy being free, going from man to man as she wished, living the free love life of the times. In one chapter she reflects on her worst sexual experiences, including several from her time as a precociously talented 16-year-old thrust into the adult world of newspaper journalism that would certainly qualify for #MeToo revision. “When I was a teenager, one man who – and I use my words very carefully here – had sex with me is now dead, and I know him to have been a very bad man, despite what the obituaries said.” But she goes on to say: “The interesting part is that I voluntarily kept seeing him for a few weeks.” One of Forrest’s greatest gifts as a writer – apart from her humour; like its predecessor, Busy Being Free is frequently hilarious – is her instinct for ambiguity. She writes so well about messy lives because she understands the contradictions we are all prone to, though I wonder if there is a generational aspect to this; it’s possible that younger women may not be as relaxed about, say, the blurring of professional and sexual relationships that Forrest regards as largely positive.

Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest | Waterstones

She does not attempt to extrapolate universal meanings or turn her hard-won insights into lessons for other women

Her writing hums with life, honesty and intelligence and underneath the romance and red carpets is loneliness and vulnerability. -- Marianne Power * THE TIMES * We’re so enamored with multitasking that we think we’re getting more done, even though our brains aren’t physically capable of this,” Bradberry wrote. “Regardless of what we might think, we are most productive when we manage our schedules enough to ensure that we can focus effectively on the task at hand.” I loved Emma’s feature on Vogue: Getting Divorced Made Me Reassess My Entire Wardrobe, and why not find out which eight books Emma Forrest would take with her to a desert island? Emma Forrest Author Bio A beautiful, unputdownable memoir about love and heartbreak, sex and celibacy, growing up and starting again. * SHEERLUXE * At times I laughed out loud but I also nearly gave up on the book two or three times because the name dropping and superfluous vocabulary became irritating.