Book description
In this Time Top 100 Book of the Year, the National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Heartland “analyzes how Dolly Parton’s songs—and success—have embodied feminism for working-class women” (People).
Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities—and…
Why read it?
1 author picked She Come by It Natural as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book positions Dolly as an icon for women’s struggles for equality and autonomy, through the lens of working-class women Sarah knew growing up.
In songs like “Just Because I’m a Woman,” Dolly lays out issues of gender-based double standards just as clearly as any feminist analysis published in an academic journal, arguably, more clearly. Songs like “Eagle When She Flies” convey, in Sarah’s words, the “simultaneous vulnerability and deep power of women.” The first example was banned in its time on US radio, while many country radio DJs refused to play the latter during the early 1990s.
Sarah connects…
From Tracey's list on people who want a Dolly Parton deeper dive.
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