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She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs
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About This Book
Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities—and strengths—of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. In her family, she writes, "country music was foremost a language among women. It's how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren't discussed." And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton. Smarsh challenged a typically male vision of the rural working class with her first book, Heartland, starring the bold, hard-luck women who raised her. Now, in She Come By It Natural, originally published in a four-part series for The Journal of Roots Music, No Depression, Smarsh explores the overlooked contributions to social progress by such women—including those averse to the term "feminism"—as exemplified by Dolly Parton's life and art. Far beyond the recently resurrected "Jolene" or quintessential "9 to 5," Parton's songs for decades have validated women who go unheard: the poor woman, the pregnant teenager, the struggling mother disparaged as "trailer trash." Parton's broader career—from singing on the front porch of her family's cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains to achieving stardom in Nashville and Hollywood, from "girl singer" managed by powerful men to leader of a self-made business and philanthropy empire—offers a springboard to examining the intersections of gender, class, and culture. Infused with Smarsh's trademark insight, intelligence, and humanity, She Come By It Natural is a sympathetic tribute to the icon Dolly Parton and—call it whatever you like—the organic feminism she embodies.
Reviews
"a praise song for the cultural icon, but what emerges from an examination of Parton's life and work is just how much relevance her lyrics have had — for Smarsh and for other women — and why so much of the writing in the book is deeply personal."
"Smarsh's luminescent prose and briskly tempered storytelling make for an illuminating take on a one-of-a-kind artist."
"Smarsh's study of Dolly, like her earlier book, Heartland , narrates a cultural schism between America's urban and rural places."
"This book...explores Parton's musical and cultural contributions."
"The emphasis is heavy on Parton's status as an example and icon to thousands of women ..."
"Like a modern-day Mae West, Parton is endlessly quotable and fun to read about, but the book is also enriched by its glimpses of the women in Smarsh's Kansan family, especially her grandmother, Betty, whose way of talking she borrowed for her title."
"Bristling with sharp insights and righteous anger ..."
"[Smarsh] is well placed to understand how Parton sang directly to rural women about unwanted pregnancies and cheating men, about hard work and escaping intolerable situations ..."
"Observing contemporary feminism's class-blindness, Smarsh is trying to write women like her own grandmother back into a cultural narrative that she believes has unduly ignored them ..."
"A small, fun, and insightful book, She Come By It Natural can be enjoyed on its own or as a perfect companion to Marsh's Heartland."
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