This book is Lesley-Ann Jones’s third biography about Freddie Mercury and it appears she was prompted to write it after the movie Bohemian Rhapsody was released in 2018.
It seems this way firstly because Jones dedicates several pages of the opening chapters discussing the Oscar-winning movie − and then continues to reference it repeatedly throughout the rest of the book.
Secondly, because she sought to include everything the movie excluded − all the sad, sordid details the fictional biopic left out.
She writes: “The sad fact is that Freddie’s X-rated lifestyle was diluted, simplified and sanitised by this production in order to render him acceptable and appealing to the widest possible audience: one with a PG-13 certificate in the UK, meaning that it was not recommended for children under the age of 13.”
Jones went to great pains to dig up all the sordid details of the Queen frontman’s affairs and experimentations and packaged them together with a selection of supporting photographs in the centre.
Whatever the movie got wrong or excluded, Jones seeks to correct in this book.
Freddie had a fascinating life but I didn’t find the book enjoyable because there was too much waffle.
Perhaps, having written about Freddie twice before the author was running out of new material so she padded this book with personal anecdotes, philosophical lamentations about the morality of fictionalising the lives of real people, scientific studies about what makes one gay, you name it, the author included it and somewhere in between was the bits of Freddie’s story that the movie omitted.
Die hard fans of Freddie Mercury would enjoy this book but it was definitely not my cup of tea.