Lynn Melnick turned a fan of Dolly Parton’s music after listening to “Islands in the Stream,” a duet with Kenny Rogers, whereas checking into rehab as a teen within the late Nineteen Eighties. Parton was already many years into her profitable nation music profession, with songs like this one additionally discovering a residence on pop charts. But she was a joke to the individuals in Melnick’s Los Angeles circles. “Islands in the Stream” was the primary Parton tune Melnick had heard begin to end, and it turned her gateway into a life of fandom.
In I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive, poet Melnick analyzes the 22-track Dolly Parton playlist that she’s listened to for the previous decade. As she examines Parton’s work, Melnick excavates her personal previous and shares what this music has meant to her through the years. Parton is a image of femininity and goodness, and Melnick has been impressed by Parton’s triumphs as she’s confronted quite a few traumas and struggles: The cocaine and whiskey Melnick used to masks the reminiscence of being raped at 9 years previous. The abusive boyfriend who stored popping up years after she left him. Deaths of household and associates. The retraumatizing results of residing as a survivor in rape tradition.
While every chapter is private, Melnick additionally brings exterior evaluation to her narrative, weaving collectively cultural criticism and educational analysis to place these songs in a broader context. And although Melnick describes herself as a die-hard Parton fan, she’s additionally keen to critique her hero. She examines some of the singer’s much less admirable decisions, akin to naming a dinner present “The Dixie Stampede” or referring to the intercourse employee who impressed Parton’s look as “trash” and a “trollop.” In common, Parton has a knack for political neutrality, which may frustrate followers like Melnick. But Melnick additionally praises her idol’s charitable giving, her readiness to defend queer rights and the methods she has modeled what it seems like for a girl to make her personal manner on the earth.
I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive is greater than an clever memoir; it’s thought-provoking cultural evaluation of a beloved icon whose relevance endures.
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