Freak Out!: My Life With Frank Zappa

By Pauline Butcher

In 1967, 21-year-old Pauline Butcher was working for a London secretarial agency when a call came through from a Mr Frank Zappa asking for a typist.The assignment would change her life forever. For three years, Pauline served as Zappa's PA, moving with him, his family and the Mothers of Invention, to a log cabin in the Hollywood Hills, where the 'straight' young English girl mixed with Oscar winners and rock royalty. Freak Out! is the captivating story of a naive young English girl thrust into the mad world of a musical legend as well as the most intimate portrait of Frank Zappa ever written.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Plexus Publishing Ltd.
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780859658980

Pauline Butcher

Pauline Butcher wrote Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa after a producer at the BBC advised her to write something that no one else could write, and no one else could write about her experiences living and working with Frank Zappa in Hollywood in from 1968 -- 1971. It is the only book that describes Frank's home life, not shown in other books, from getting up to going to bed, composing at the piano, rehearsing with the Mothers of Invention, visiting rock stars, freaks, family squabbles, and more.

Reviews for Freak Out!

[Jayme Sharpe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good read. It chronicles the life of Zappa his ups and downs alongside the author Pauline who was his secretary and her life living a straight line life in England to a much wilder one with Zappa in Hollywood. The book very briefly mentions toward the end how both matured and have grown.